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T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a a t C h a p e l H i l l
The Kenan Legacy
World-class faculty, students and facilities
CELEBRATING CAROLINA FIRST:
• Distinguished Professors and Fellows
• Global Giving and Learning
• New Programs and Scholarships
• Dedicated Donors
S p r i n g • 2 0 0 8
a r t s&s c i e n c e s C a r o l i n a
I n s i d e : C l i m a t e C h a n g e • S a m E r v i n & T e r r y S a n f o r d • P l a y M a k e r s ’ N e w D a y
The College of Arts & Sciences
• Holden Thorp ’86
Dean
• William Andrews ’70 MA ’73 PhD
Senior Associate Dean, Fine Arts and Humanities
• Bruce Carney
Senior Associate Dean, Sciences
• Karen Gil
Senior Associate Dean, Social Sciences
• Tammy McHale
Senior Associate Dean, Finance and Planning
• James W. May
Senior Associate Dean, Program Development;
Executive Director, Arts & Sciences Foundation
• Bobbi Owen
Senior Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education
• Arne Kalleberg
Director, International Programs
Arts & Sciences Foundation
Board of Directors
• Ivan V. Anderson, Jr. ’61, Charleston, SC, Chair
• H. Holden Thorp ’86, Chapel Hill, NC, President
• William L. Andrews, ‘70 MA ‘73 PhD,
Chapel Hill, NC, Vice President
• Tammy J. McHale, Chapel Hill, NC, Treasurer
• James W. May, Jr., Chapel Hill, NC, Secretary
• James L. Alexandre ’79, London, UK
• D. Shoffner Allison ’98, Charlotte, NC
• William S. Brenizer ’74, Glen Head, NY
• Cathy Bryson ’90, Santa Monica, CA
• Jeffrey Forbes Buckalew ’88 ’93 MBA,
New York, NY
• G. Munroe Cobey ’74, Chapel Hill, NC
• Sheila Ann Corcoran ’92 ’98 MBA,
Los Angeles, CA
• Vicki Underwood Craver ’92, Cos Cob, CT
• Steven M. Cumbie ’70 ’73 MBA, McLean, VA
• Archie H. Davis ’64, Savannah, GA
• Jaroslav T. Folda, III, Chapel Hill, NC
• Mary Dewar Froelich ’83, Charlotte, NC
• Gardiner W. Garrard, Jr. ’64, Columbus, GA
• Emmett Boney Haywood ’77 ’82 JD,
Raleigh, NC
• William T. Hobbs, II ’85, Charlotte, NC
• Lynn Buchheit Janney ’70, Butler, MD
• Matthew G. Kupec ’80, Chapel Hill, NC
• William M. Lamont, Jr. ’71, Dallas, TX
• Paula R. Newsome ’77, Charlotte, NC
• John A. Powell ‘77, San Francisco, CA
• Benjamine Reid ’71, Miami, FL
• H. Martin Sprock III ‘87, Charlotte, NC
• Emily Pleasants Sternberg ’88 ’94 MBA,
Greenwich, CT
• Thomas M. Uhlman ’71 MS ’75 PhD,
Murray Hill, NJ
• Eric P. Vick ’90, Oxford, UK
• Charles L. Wickham, III ’82 BSBA,
London, UK
• Loyal W. Wilson ’70, Chagrin Falls, OH
In Memoriam Carolina Loses
a Special Person
Eve Carson, 1985-2008
By Holden Thorp,
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Carolina lost a special person on March 5
— Eve Marie Carson, 22, a senior political
science and biology major in the College of Arts
and Sciences.
Carson, the victim of an off-campus
shooting, was elected UNC’s student body
president in February 2007. Her term would
have ended in April.
A native of Athens, Ga., Carson was born
on Nov. 19, 1985. She came to Carolina in the fall of 2004 as the recipient of a prestigious
Morehead-Cain Scholarship. She was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and
served on the UNC Board of Trustees.
My relationship with Eve began in March 2004 when I and three colleagues
interviewed her for the Morehead Scholarship. Eve’s written application seemed to me
almost too good to be true. She was interested in neuroscience and, in particular, in
the sociobiology hypothesis initially posited by Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson, a hero
we both shared. My skepticism about her intellectual prowess was quickly eliminated,
however, because when I began questioning her about the roles of genes in behavior, I
found she was an expert. But she also talked about the world with a combined scholarly
sophistication and wide-eyed idealism, a special brand of optimism that came to inspire all
of the UNC community.
On top of all that, Eve starred in soccer, so she was our top candidate. A few days
later after she got the good news about the Morehead, I wrote her a short e-mail of
congratulations and told her I’d be happy to answer any questions she had about Carolina.
Her e-mail response of four years ago shows how well she had already figured out what
the College was all about:
“When I began my college process,” she said, “I was sure that the small,
private college was for me. As I went on, however, I realized that I do want the entire
college experience — the academics, the town, the opportunity for study abroad and
undergraduate research, an enthusiastic student body and involved teachers — and that is
what UNC offers.”
Always inquisitive, she added, “I will be sure to get in touch with you if I have any
questions about UNC (or if I have questions about socio/neurobiology — if that is alright
with you.)” A year or so later, when I was director of the Morehead Planetarium and
Science Center, I invited E. O. Wilson to come to campus to give a talk. Eve was there, of
course, and I got to introduce her to our hero.
Last year, Eve was elected student body president at just the same time that I
accepted my job as dean. Like everyone, I thoroughly enjoyed working with her. We
shared the podium many times in the last year, and we loved sharing our passion for
Carolina with the audience. I never could quite match Eve. She always talked about the
“Carolina Way,” which she described as “excellence with a heart.”
That heart is heavy with the tragedy of Eve’s death and the loss of one of Carolina’s
greatest friends.
Eve Carson
Table of Contents c a r o l i n a F i r s t
c a m p a i g n
Special Section
A celebration of the transformational
impact of private giving on students,
faculty, programs and facilities in the
College of Arts and Sciences
M o r e St o r i e s
23 Profile
Mary Anne Dickson ’63
She has motivated thousands to give
to Carolina and the College
24 powerful Programs
Gifts enhance communication studies,
Jewish studies, creative writing,
philosophy and honors
30 Star Students
New scholarships, undergraduate
research support and graduate
fellowships
33 Celebrating
Entrepreneurship
34 Profile
Margaret Harper
Supporting the College since 1975
35 College First
A historical snapshot, plus the
campaign by the numbers
36 Sixty-Six new
Distinguished
Professorships
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 1
F e a t u r e s
4 • The Kenan Legacy
The Carolina blue sky’s the limit
for faculty and students who are
reaping the educational benefits
of Carolina First gifts from the
Kenan family
7 • Faculty Support
Distinguished professors Bill
Ferris, Peter Sherwood, Mike
Ramsey, Pam Durban and Dinesh
Manocha, plus news on fellowships
and research support that help
us recruit and keep the best
teachers and scholars
16 • Global Giving
Opens New Doors
Support for students, programs
and faculty here and abroad, and
a new international hub on campus
20 • Building Science
Cutting-edge facilities attract
outstanding faculty and students and
help them tackle the world’s problems
Cover photo: Kenan Giving: The Kenan Trust has given generously to students, faculty,
new buildings and programs in the College. Pictured, from left (front row): Kenan trustee Tom
Kenan, chemist Nancy Allbritton, Kenan Trust executive director Richard Krasno, Institute for the
Arts and Humanities faculty fellow and professor Pat Parker. (Back row): Kenan Music Scholars
Daniel Hammond and Lauren Schultes, Kenan Eminent Professor James Rives and Kenan Music
Scholar Jessica Kunttu. (Photo by Steve Exum)
7
4
16
Steve Exum Steve Exum
Table of Contents 2 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences T a b l e o f
C o n t e n t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008
D e p a r t m e n t s
37 Profile
Mysteries of the Olmec:
PhD alum explores first New World
civilization.
38 High Achievers
Transcendental honor, Davie Award
winners, Louise Fletcher receives
PlayMaker Award, WOWS Scholars
support women in science, lifetime
achievement in geography, 4 win state’s
highest civilian honor, Pukkila advances
science education, 2 faculty win
Fulbrights, and more
51 Highlights
New use for old bridges and dams,
Entwisle directs National Children’s
Study Center, understanding addiction,
bye-bye Venable, high-tech football
helmets reveal info about head injuries,
marine scientists teach under water,
Ted Turner talks, and more
55 College Bookshelf
New books from Russell Banks,
Robert Morgan, Philip Gura,
Daphne Athas and other College
faculty and alumni.
F e a t u r e s
42 • The Heat is On
Exploring the relationship between
climate change and drought
48 • A New Day
Joe Haj ’88 is writing a fresh script
for PlayMakers
50 • ‘Artistic Home’
Ray Dooley has been calling
PlayMakers home for 19 years
55 • Historic Showdown
Terry Sanford and Sam Ervin
square off in an excerpt from
this new Ervin biography
48
42
Steve Exum
55
Richard Miller/Courtesy of NASA
CarolinaFirstCarolinaFirst
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FirstCarolinaFirstCarolinCarolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 3 a
F r o m t h e D e a n
Holden Thorp
Steve Exum
Celebrating Carolina First
Transformative.
We’ve been using that word a lot lately to describe
the extraordinary impact of private giving to the College of
Arts and Sciences during Carolina First. The numbers are
astounding: Nearly 35,000 alumni and friends gave more
than $387 million to the College (soaring past our goal
of $350 million) during the fundraising campaign, which
began July 1, 1999, and ended Dec. 31, 2007.
In my time working on the Carolina First campaign
as dean and chair of chemistry, one thing shines through:
People love Carolina. My fondest thoughts of the campaign
are the looks on the faces of our alumni when they come
into my office to see the Old Well outside the window and the appreciative welcome that I
always get when meeting Carolina folks in far-off locations. The donors make so many things
possible for us because they so value and cherish their experience in the College. It has been
a great privilege to work with all of you on this campaign. Thank you.
And now for some of the details:
Carolina First raised $2.38 billion for the University, going down in the record books as
the fifth-largest completed campaign in U.S. higher education.
We’ve come a long way in the College since our first official capital campaign in 1984-
1986, when our goal was $5 million and we raised $22.2 million. The momentum has
continued to grow from there, and we’re getting a great return on our donors’ investment
in the College. Their gifts will enhance the Carolina experience for future generations of
students, and the financial return on the investment of our growing endowment has been
phenomenal.
We have a lot of reasons to celebrate, and we do just that in this issue of Carolina Arts
& Sciences. I am excited to share with you a special campaign section focused on how
private gifts are transforming faculty, students, programs and facilities in the College. Early
in the campaign, we started off with a bang. A $24 million gift from New York investment
manager Julian H. Robertson Jr. ’55 and his wife, Josie, divided equally between Duke and
UNC, created a pioneering collaborative scholarship program that has recruited exceptional
undergraduate students who study at both campuses.
Gifts of all sizes are making a difference. In these pages, you’ll read about the Kenan
family, which has given more to the College during the recent Carolina First campaign than
any other private donor. The various Kenan philanthropies gave the University nearly $70
million during Carolina First — and more than half of that total has been designated for the
College. We also profile Margaret Taylor Harper, who made the first annual gift of $1,000 to
the College in 1975 — and has continued to give to the Annual Fund every year.
During Carolina First, donors created 66 endowed professorships in the College and
enhanced an existing fund, the Bowman and Gordon Gray Professorships. You’ll read about
how private gifts have helped us to recruit and retain faculty, one of our key priorities. You’ll
see how scholarships are making a difference for students, how Carolina is becoming more
global, how academic programs are enhancing their offerings, and how new buildings are
attracting faculty stars to campus.
The rest of the magazine includes our regular feature section, this time showcasing the
work of College scholars who are exploring the relationship between climate change and
drought. You’ll read about Joe Haj ’88, who is transforming PlayMakers Repertory Company.
We feature an excerpt of a showdown between Senator Sam Ervin ’17 and Terry Sanford ’39
JD ’46, from a new Ervin biography by Karl Campbell PhD ’95.
The purpose of the College of Arts and Sciences, as I see it, is to promote original
thought and produce the people and ideas needed to solve the world’s biggest problems.
The $387 million raised during Carolina First energizes every aspect of our academic mission.
Let’s celebrate!
Holden Thorp, Dean
The College Index
• Amount raised for the College of Arts
and Sciences during Carolina First:
$387 million
• Percentage used to support students
through scholarships, study abroad funds,
undergraduate research and awards: 18.6
• Percentage directed to faculty support: 39.9
• Number of new endowed professorships: 66
• Number of donors to the College: 34,507
• Earliest class year of a donor to Carolina First:
1926. Dr. Guy Adams Cardwell (died in 2005)
• Classes with the most donors to the College:
1971 (729); 1990 (704); 1989 (689)
• Oldest living donor: Maxine Swalin,
born in 1903
• Number of donors from Class of 2009:
21, most born in 1987
• Number of College alumni who have
made gifts: 27,866
• As a percentage of all College donors: 81
• Percentage of all donors to the College
from North Carolina: 53
• After N.C., top states in donors to the College
in descending order: Virginia, Georgia,
New York, California, Florida
• Number of donors making gifts of $100,000
to $499,999: 270
• Number of donors making gifts of $500,000
to $999,999: 64
• Number of donors making gifts of $1 million
or more: 95
• Number of new endowment and expendable
funds created in Bicentennial Campaign
(1990-1995): 337
• Number of new endowment and expendable
funds created in Carolina First (1999-2007): 735
• After U.S., top countries in donors to the
College in descending order: England, Canada,
France, Germany, Japan
• Largest single gift: $14,204,700
• Amount of largest cumulative gifts from
one donor: $21,510,000
KT hee 4 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
As long as there’s been a Carolina,
there have been Kenans to support its
mission, and the College of Arts and Sciences
has been one of the major beneficiaries. The
family and its two charitable trusts have given
more to the College over history and during
the recent $2.38 billion Carolina First capital
campaign than any other private donor. The
family’s generosity supports faculty, students,
facilities and programs across the arts and
sciences, including the following Carolina First
gifts to the College from the William R. Kenan
Jr. Charitable Trust:
• $8 million to provide full scholarships
for four incoming music students every year
and to complete the Kenan Music Building;
• Five $3 million professorships of the
$27 million given to the University to endow
10 faculty chairs. There are currently four
Kenan Eminent Professors in the College,
and a search is under way for a fifth;
• $3 million for the Carolina Physical
Science Complex for state-of-the-art
classrooms and laboratories;
• $500,000 to the Institute for the
Arts and Humanities, which is dedicated to
the “recruitment, retention and refreshment”
of faculty; and
• $250,000 to PlayMakers Repertory
Company in the department of dramatic art.
Gifts from the Kenan family have
benefited Carolina faculty since 1917
when Mary Lily Kenan Flagler left a bequest
establishing the Kenan Foundation for
Distinguished Professors. William R. Kenan
Jr. (class of 1894) died in 1965 and left
$95 million for philanthropy in the service
of education, singling out his alma mater
for special attention. The trust was formed
that year and immediately began providing
support for endowed professorships.
• In 1965, the trust committed
$5 million to endow 25 W.R. Kenan Jr.
Distinguished Professors at UNC. Today 11 of
these are in the College of Arts and Sciences.
• In 1995, Kenan funds endowed
four Kenan Distinguished Professors of
only school specifically mentioned in the
guidelines for the trust.
Kenan majored in chemistry and as an
undergraduate collaborated with chemistry
professor Francis Preston Venable and
alumnus John Motley Morehead on the
groundbreaking discovery of acetylene gas. In
his memoirs, Kenan — the chemist, engineer,
industrialist and executive — wrote fondly
of his alma mater and noted, “Education is a
dynamic thing. Education should concern itself
with the whole personality.” His will codified
this conviction: “I have always believed firmly
that a good education is the most cherished
gift an individual can receive, and it is my
sincere hope that the provisions of the Article
will result in a substantial benefit to mankind.”
Undergraduate Teaching Excellence in the
College.
• In 1998, the trust established the
W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professorship
in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at
UNC and N.C. State, a post currently held
by chemist Joe DeSimone.
“Higher education, and particularly
the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, has always been a priority for the Kenan
Trust,” said Thomas S. Kenan, III, a trustee
of the family foundation, who graduated
from Carolina in 1959 with a degree in
economics.
“We’ve never wanted anything less
than to help transform the University …
contributing to the Carolina First Campaign
was another step toward that goal.”
A special partnership
It all began in 1790, when North
Carolina legislator James Kenan, a member
of UNC’s first Board of Trustees, contributed
$50 to the construction of Old East, the first
state university building in the nation. Over
the next two centuries, dozens of family
members would serve as trustees, make their
way to Chapel Hill as students or function
as benefactors. Taken in sum, this has
created what Chancellor James Moeser has
happily characterized as “one of the oldest
philanthropic partnerships in American
higher education.”
There’s virtue in longevity. Members
of various Kenan branches continue to give
to the University, either as individuals or
through foundations and trusts. The gifts
range from targeted to all-purpose, with
funds going to professorships and libraries,
athletic scholarships and the arts. But the
charitable benchmark of the family was
established when William Rand Kenan
Jr. died and left the bulk of his estate for
the trust bearing his name. From that has
been shaped a national philanthropic
institution focused widely and deeply on
higher education, but favoring UNC, the
Carolina First K e n a n L e g a c y
Kenan Carolina First K e n a n L e g a c y
One family’s largesse has transformed
the College over time
S t o r i e s B y L i s a H . T owl e
LEFT TO RIGHT: Kenan Eminent Professor James Rives, Kenan Music Scholar Daniel Hammond, Kenan trustee Tom Kenan, Kenan Music Scholar Lauren
Schultes, Kenan Trust executive director Richard Krasno, Institute for the Arts and Humanities fellow and communication studies professor Pat Parker,
chemist Nancy Allbritton and Kenan Music Scholar Jessica Kunttu. Steve Exum
Legacy
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 5
Today, the William R. Kenan Jr.
Charitable Trust is valued at $550 million
to $600 million, and the assets of the four
affiliated William R. Kenan Jr. funds total $140
million to $150 million. About 90 percent of
their grants each year fund education both
inside and outside the classroom. Thus, said
Richard M. Krasno, executive director of
the Kenan Trust and president of the funds,
“This is a unique institution among academic
foundations. We have really stuck to our
knitting. We’re committed to the enduring
rather than the trendy and provocative.”
That explains, then, the philanthropy’s
willingness to be the momentum-makers in
the Carolina First Campaign. Upon hearing
about the start of the campaign in 2000,
Krasno paid a visit to the chancellor in order
to learn more about its goals and priorities.
He took the information back to the trustees,
Thomas Kenan and Mary Lily Flagler Wiley,
a grandniece of William R. Kenan Jr. They
concurred it was critical to support Carolina’s
vision of becoming the nation’s leading public
university.
The various Kenan family philanthropies
gave the University nearly $70 million during
Carolina First. More than half of that total has
been designated for the College of Arts and
Sciences, comprising nearly 10 percent of
private support raised for the College in the
campaign.
“In recognition of the importance of the
Carolina First Campaign to the University,
the trust wanted to give gifts that built on the
precedent set by generations of members of the
Kenan family,” said Krasno, former president of
the Monterey Institute of International Studies
in Monterey, Calif., as well as former president
and CEO of the Institute of International
Education in New York.
“The thing about Kenan giving is this:
It reflects an extraordinarily sophisticated
understanding of higher education, from the
aspect of students, teaching and budgets,” said
Holden Thorp ’86, dean of the College and the
Kenan Professor of Chemistry. “For one public
university to have such a benefactor at this
level is unusual. If someone asked what makes
UNC stand out, especially among Southern
universities, this kind of philanthropy is it.” •
6 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First K e n a n L e g a c y
Harmonic
Progression
When asked what an
$8 million gift from the Kenan
Trust means to the department
of music, Tim Carter, chair and
David G. Frey Distinguished
Professor of Music, takes a
moment to search for just the
right adjective. Then comes,
“Transformational. It’s been
remarkable in every possible
way.”
Richard Krasno, executive director of
the trust, says that was precisely the idea.
“The trustees believe the grant will thrust the
department into the top five programs of its
kind nationally,” he said.
The gift, the largest private gift to an
academic department in the College of
Arts and Sciences as part of Carolina First,
included $4 million to create an endowment
for full four-year merit scholarships in music to
be awarded annually to four undergraduates.
While the trust has long supported faculty and
facilities at Carolina, the scholarships represent
its most generous gift directed to students.
The Kenan Music Scholarships cover
in-state tuition, student fees, room and
board, and provide a $6,000 allowance
for study abroad, work with a particular
performer, internships with elite music groups,
attendance at music festivals and other music
events, and travel to audition for graduate
school programs.
The other half of the Kenan gift —
$4 million — went to complete funding
for a new building now under construction
on Columbia Street.
The Kenan Music Building is slated
for completion in 2008 and will include a
large instrumental rehearsal hall, 18 faculty
studios for applied teaching, 100- and 45-
seat classrooms, three piano studios, three
ensemble rehearsal rooms, three practice
rooms, a world music room, a digital
theory laboratory, a recording studio and a
percussion suite.
Carter’s description of the gift as
“transformational” resonates
with first-year student Lauren
Schultes, a vocalist from
Grosse Pointe, Mich. Last fall,
she joined three classmates
from North Carolina —
Cynthia Burton of Banner Elk
(violinist), Daniel Hammond
of Raleigh (French horn player)
and Jessica Kunttu of Cary
(bassoonist) — as the inaugural
class of Kenan Music Scholars,
a quartet selected from almost
200 students who auditioned.
“I can’t describe the opportunity to study
at UNC as anything less than a blessing. I
couldn’t have afforded to come here as an
out-of-state student, and I wanted a broader
education than conservatories offer,” said
Schultes.
An operatic soprano who’s been
recognized for achievements in French,
dance and distributive education as well as
music, Schultes has already experienced
mountaintop moments as a result of her
scholarship. For instance, she and her voice
professor, Terry Rhodes, traveled to the
Kennedy Center to see Placido Domingo
perform in “La Boheme.” Afterward, they
met with the internationally renowned tenor.
Schultes said she’ll never forget when he said
to her: “I hope to hear you sing someday.” •
Eminent Impact
• Fact 1: In 1917, Mary Lily Kenan
Flagler left UNC the largest bequest ever
made to a state institution at the time. Her
will established the Kenan Foundation for
Distinguished Professors.
• Fact 2: In the mid-1960s, endowing
professorships was the first order of business
for the new William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable
Trust. Trustees aimed to augment the quality
of undergraduate teaching and scholarship
at U.S. colleges and universities, and they
started with UNC.
• Fact 3: A third of Carolina’s faculty,
like their counterparts nationwide, are nearing
retirement age, placing the University in
intense competition for world-class scholars.
• Fact 4: Carolina���s most well-known
faculty are often targeted for recruitment by
other leading institutions who have bigger
endowments.
So it was that legacy and need met in the
establishment of Kenan Eminent Professorships
during Carolina First. A $27 million lead
gift to the University from the Kenan Trust,
the William R. Kenan Jr. Fund and the
Kenan family resulted in the $3 million
professorships. Ultimately numbering 10,
they will be the most generously endowed
professorships in University history. Richard
Krasno, executive director of the trust,
described the professorships as “part of a
proactive recruitment and retention strategy.”
The College of Arts and Sciences is
already benefiting from that vision. In the
summer of 2006, James Rives, a renowned
classics scholar, arrived in Chapel Hill from
York University. He joined two other Kenan
Eminents in the College: Minrose Gwin,
an expert on Southern literature, and Jeff
Spinner-Halev, a scholar of political ethics.
A fourth Kenan Eminent, Patricia McAnany,
was appointed in July 2007 in anthropology,
and a search is under way for a fifth.
“UNC has an excellent classics
department, but I was happy in Canada,”
said Rives. “Uprooting myself from a
tenured position and moving was a daunting
prospect. If not for the plum of being a Kenan
Eminent Professor, and the affirmation it
brought, I wouldn’t have done it.”
Rives’ main area of scholarly interest
is religion in the Roman imperial period,
though he teaches courses in a range of
areas, including Greek myth, Roman law
and Latin historical prose. “I anticipate my
stay in Chapel Hill will be a long one,” he
said. “I can’t imagine an offer that would
tempt me away.” •
ABOVE: The first class of Kenan Music Scholars, from left:
Jessica Kunttu, Cynthia Burton, Daniel Hammond and Lauren Schultes.
Joey Seawell/Steve Exum Photography
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 7
Bill Ferris tried three times to get a grant to support
The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.
“Many scholars didn’t think the South had enough serious
information to deserve an encyclopedia,” said Ferris, who co-edited
the book with Charles Wilson. Originally published in 1989,
the tome has won numerous awards and a Pulitzer nomination,
sold well over 60,000 copies and is now being republished in
24 separate volumes divided by topic.
Ferris, the Joel R. Williamson
Eminent Professor of History
and senior associate director of
UNC’s Center for the Study of
the American South, is an astute
chronicler of all things Southern,
from Delta blues to moon pies,
Hank Aaron to zydeco music. He
grew up on a farm in Mississippi and
says he never quite left, though more
accurately, when he left he took the
South with him. He attended prep
school in the Northeast, did graduate
study in Chicago, Pennsylvania and
Ireland, held teaching positions at
Jackson State, Yale and home again at
Ole Miss., and served as chair of the
National Endowment for the Humanities
in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 2001.
“The South is a world that has
always stayed in my heart and has inspired
me to do the work that I do as a teacher
and scholar,” Ferris said.
The title of Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History
was conferred on Ferris when he accepted the UNC appointment
in 2002. A gift from John A. Powell ’77 and Paula J. Robichaud
funded the endowed professorship established in 2000 to honor
Williamson, a member of the history faculty from 1960 to 2003,
and to provide substantial financial support to help the College
recruit and retain outstanding faculty. To honor Carolina’s
renowned teachers and scholars in Southern studies, Powell and
Robichaud also created the John Shelton Reed Distinguished
Professorship, held by Larry Griffin; and in 2007, Powell
established the George B. Tindall Distinguished Professorship.
Williamson has written a number of award-winning books on
the American South. Williamson and Ferris are “old, old friends,”
Ferris said. The endowed professorship, he said, “makes me feel
like I really came to the right place.”
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
The prodigious Encyclopedia is only a part of Ferris’ body of work.
He has written or edited 10 books so far and created 15 documentary
films, mostly about Southern music and folklore. Among his many
honors, Ferris has received a Lifetime Achievement Award at an
international film festival in Prague, a Richard Wright Literary
Excellence Award from the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration,
the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities from former President Bill
Clinton and the American Library Association’s
Dartmouth Medal. Ferris was the founding
director of the Center for the Study of Southern
Culture at the University of Mississippi, where
he was on the faculty for 18 years.
Tom Rankin, director of the Center for
Documentary Studies at Duke University,
has worked with Ferris on a number of
projects and admires Ferris’ ability to make
connections among people from disparate
disciplines and create work that has a
resonance beyond the University.
“He would walk the halls of Congress
and find ways to get Jesse Helms interested
in the National Endowment for the
Humanities, a tall order when he arrived
in Washington,”
Rankin said. “While
always keenly
aware of significant
differences, he looks
for what we share,
not at the things that
divide us — and
builds from there.”
At Carolina,
Ferris has been
teaching classes
on the history of music in the American South and its impact on
the region’s history and culture. His students have explored Native
American songs, Appalachian folk ballads and Afro-American hymns,
spirituals and work chants, and considered a range of forms including
blues, country music, gospel, jazz, rock and rap.
“I’ve always told my students … ‘You will not have a rich and
full life unless you do the things you love,’” he said.
With support from a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Nelson
Schwab Faculty Fellowship from the College’s Institute for the Arts
and Humanities, Ferris has been working on a book about the roots
of Mississippi blues, where he started his fieldwork decades ago. •
Southern Scholar Southern Scholar
Ferris holds professorship named for longtime friend, colleague
B y N ancy E . O ates
Bill Ferris, the Joel
R. Williamson
Eminent Professor
of History and
senior associate
director of
UNC’s Center for the Study of the American
South, is an astute chronicler of all things
Southern, from Delta blues to moon pies,
Hank Aaron to zydeco music.
Steve Exum
8 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Peter Sherwood built his first linguistic bridge at 15 when,
while a student, he also took on the role of teacher. His first pupil
for lessons in Hungarian was his physics instructor at Manchester
Grammar School in England in 1963. The instructor planned a trip
to Hungary, Sherwood’s native country.
“Suddenly I realized I had been blessed with two mother
tongues, and ever since I have wanted to provide a cultural bridge
between Hungary and the English-speaking world,” Sherwood said.
Sherwood is the new Laszlo
Birinyi Sr. Distinguished Professor
in Hungarian Language and
Culture in the department of
Slavic languages and literatures.
“In this post at UNC, I hope to
make that bridge ever stronger
and wider.”
Sherwood, who started
at UNC in January, is the
first professor of Hungarian
literature, culture and film at
Carolina. He also teaches the
language, which has been
offered at Carolina for five
years. Although Hungarian
is not a Slavic language, the
position has been placed in the Slavic languages
department for a number of reasons having to do with the
history and geography of the region.
The $1 million endowed professorship “is intended to
expose undergraduate students to Hungary’s extremely rich artistic
and cultural legacy and to train future specialists on Hungary at
the graduate level,” says Christopher Putney, chair of the Slavic
languages department. “Professor Sherwood has the talent and
qualifications to make Chapel Hill a world-class center of research
and scholarship in Hungarian studies.”
Those qualifications include about 35 years teaching in the
School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University
of London, where Sherwood was honorary senior lecturer before
moving to Chapel Hill with his wife, Julia. He has produced
Hungarian-English and English-Hungarian dictionaries, including
Oxford University Press’ first English-Hungarian dictionary, which
was recognized as one of the best Hungarian dictionaries by the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2007.
A literary translator, Sherwood also has written a textbook,
A Concise Introduction to Hungarian (School of Slavonic and East
European Studies, University of London, 1996), and he plans a
revised second edition of the now out-of-print book.
The Carolina appointment “offers a once-in-a-generation
opportunity for me to establish a Hungarian studies program in
the United States based on the intensive study and learning of the
language,” says Sherwood, 59, who received the Order of Merit
from the republic of Hungary in December in London.
Historically and culturally, Hungary has been an integral —
though distinctive — part of the area for more than a millennium.
“No study of Europe is complete without it,” Sherwood said.
Demonstrating and making accessible “the fascinating
but shifting position of Hungary
between East and West,
making students aware of
the richness of the linguistic
and cultural heritage of
Hungary, will be the
major challenge” of his first
teaching position in the U.S.,
Sherwood added.
As a native of Hungary,
Sherwood has a bond with
Laszlo Birinyi Jr. ’67, who
established the professorship
named for his father. Sherwood
and the Birinyis
emigrated from
their homeland.
Sherwood, born
in Budapest,
moved to
England at 8
after the failed Hungarian revolution in 1956. Birinyi’s father led
the family out of Hungary during World War II, and they settled
in the U.S. when Birinyi was 7. The younger Birinyi grew up in
Pennsylvania and in 1962 enrolled at Carolina, where he majored in
history. He later established himself as a successful equity trader and
became president of Birinyi Associates Inc., a stock market research
firm. He lives with his family in Southport, Conn.
Sherwood and Birinyi are in distinguished company. Hungary
has produced such luminaries as Laszlo Biro, inventor of the ballpoint
pen, and financier and philanthropist George Soros.
“Hungary’s distinctive language and complex historical and
cultural development have produced people who have contributed
to the culture of the Western world, and to the U.S. in particular,”
Sherwood said. “The contribution and relevance of Hungarians to
the world as we know it today is quite astonishing.” •
Building Bridges Building Linguistic Bridges
New professorship exposes students to Hungary’s rich cultural legacy
B y J ess C larke
Peter Sherwood
is the new
Laszlo Birinyi Sr. Distinguished Professor
in Hungarian Language and Culture in the
department of Slavic languages and literatures.
Steve Exum
There were other suitors, but Carolina moved quickly, offering
Ramsey the Minnie N. Goldby Distinguished Professorship.
Established with a $666,000 gift by chemistry alumnus Steven
Goldby ’61 and his wife, Florence, of Atherton, Calif., in honor of
his mother, that amount was matched by $334,000 from the state’s
Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund to create a $1
million endowment. Then came the coup de grace: Ramsey was also
able to design his research group’s 5,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art
lab space in Chapman Hall, part of the new Carolina Physical
Science Complex.
“I had always dreamed of designing my own laboratory from
the ground up,” explained Ramsey. “So to say the offer was a dream
come true is not exaggeration.”
In the fall of 2006, Ramsey received a $3.8 million grant from
the National Institutes of Health to further develop his lab-on-a-chip
technology. He predicts that in the next five to 10 years the
technology could make genetic information so inexpensive that
everyone could have
their DNA sequence as-sessed.
Such information
could allow health care
professionals to tailor
diagnosis, treatment
and prevention to each
person’s genetic profile.
Ramsey was one of several Carolina faculty
members to establish the Carolina Center of
Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence. The center’s
scientists work together to quickly harness
innovations in nanotechnology for the early
diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Ramsey said the opportunity to work with
colleagues in the School of Medicine also made
Carolina appealing.
“Through collaborations with medical
school faculty we are identifying and developing
important clinical applications for microfluidic
technologies — for example, a clinical diagnos-tic
tool that oncologists could use to quickly
diagnose the effectiveness of a chemotherapy
regime using a drop of blood,” Ramsey said.
“Our efforts in developing microfluidics
has not only been enjoyable research, but it has also been
satisfying to see commercial products that are based upon our work,
and that they are being used for important problems such as drug
discovery that will hopefully benefit society.” •
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 9
Carolina chemist, engineer and entrepreneur Mike Ramsey
traces his passion for scientific innovation to a chemistry set he
received as a birthday present in junior high school. Until his
imagination was captured by chemistry, Ramsey claims he was a
mediocre student.
It was also the gift that kept on giving. With his scientific
interest sparked, the flame was fed by undergraduate work in
chemistry at Bowling Green State University. Ramsey started
laying the foundations for technology he would later pioneer
— microfluidics or “lab-on–a-chip.”
Ramsey’s Ph.D. in chemistry from Indiana University was
followed by work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he
first focused on spectroscopy, a technique he used to identify single
molecules. He established himself as a leader with an ability to
persevere and attract project funding despite skepticism about new
ideas — the practical uses for these tiny fluidic circuits, for example.
The lab-on-a-chip allows lab tests to be performed in miniature
on silicon, glass or plastic chips that have been etched with a series
of tiny interconnected channels through which chemicals and other
fluids can run. These are then mixed in a miniscule reactor under
the control of a computer. The technology has applications for
everything from drug discovery
to environmental monitoring.
In 1996, lab-on-a-chip won
Discover magazine’s Technology
Award, a NOVA Award from
Lockheed Martin Corp. and an
R&D 100 Award.
As the 21st century dawned,
Ramsey was “getting antsy” for
a new challenge. “I’d gone as
far as I could go with regards to
promotions at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory and was looking for a
new environment. Academia was
calling, again, but this time I was
ready to answer,” he said. At the top
of his list was UNC, where a graduate
school classmate and friend, Jim
Jorgenson, W.R. Kenan Jr. Professor
of Chemistry, had inspired Ramsey
with his work related to reducing the
size of chemical separation techniques.
“In addition to having friends and colleagues at UNC,
I also liked the area — the proximity to the entrepreneurial spirit
found in Research Triangle Park,” Ramsey said.
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Good Chemistry Good Chemistry
Innovator lured by great faculty support, colleagues and lab
B y L isa H . T owle
UNC chemist, engineer and entrepreneur
Mike Ramsey traces his passion for
scientific innovation to a
chemistry set he received
as a birthday present in
junior high school. Steve Exum
The torch
was passed
when Pam Durban was
named the first Doris Betts Distinguished
Professor of Creative Writing.
10 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
When beloved English professor and noted
author Doris Betts retired from the
classroom after 35 years of teaching
at Carolina, devoted alumni and
friends created a distinguished
professorship in creative writing in
her honor.
The torch was passed when
Rosa P. “Pam” Durban — whose
writing is included in a collection of
the best American short stories of the
past century — was named the first
Doris Betts Distinguished Professor of
Creative Writing.
The endowed faculty chair was
established in 2001 with a major gift
from 1950 alumnus Ben M. Jones III
and more than 200 individual donors.
They were all anxious to honor Betts,
the nationally respected Southern voice
in American literature, author of six
novels and three short story collections,
who had been the Alumni Distinguished
Professor at Carolina.
Durban describes the moment (then) English department
chair William Andrews offered her the Betts professorship. “The
sun rose and shone fully on me.”
• Honoring a lively heart
“The search committee faced an exhaustive nationwide
search for the first Betts professor. Doris, our program’s lively heart
for over three decades, was retiring,” explained creative writing
professor Michael McFee. “We sought a writer as fearless and
accomplished, a teacher as inspiring yet demanding, a colleague as
generous and devoted as she was.”
They selected a gifted storyteller and teacher, a woman born
and raised in Aiken, S.C., recipient of an undergraduate degree
from UNC-Greensboro and an MFA from the University of Iowa.
Before coming to UNC in the fall of 2001, Durban was a professor
at Georgia State University and had been director of the creative
writing program at Ohio University.
McFee is thrilled with Durban’s appointment. “Pam Durban’s
fiction and essays are literary art of the first order,” he said. “Her
excellent and intense instruction is already legendary, and her
dedication to UNC’s community of writers is obvious to all
of her lucky students and fellow teachers.”
• Antebellum ghosts and
country music stars
Durban’s prose mesmerizes readers with
stories about relationships and traditions, many
of them purely, beautifully, uniquely Southern,
from antebellum family ghosts to stardom-seeking
country music singers.
“I love the initial impulse of writing,
the hard work of revising, people reading
and reacting to my words,” said Durban.
“I love the whole process and the idea
that it is a process.”
Her short works are collected in All
Set About with Fever Trees and Other Stories
and appear in The Best American Short Stories
of the Century, edited by John Updike, and
the prestigious Pushcart Prize: Best of the
Small Presses anthology, as well as the 20th
anniversary edition of Best of the South.
Her novel, The
Laughing Place, was
followed by So Far
Back, honored with
the 2001 Lillian Smith
Award for Fiction.
She was founder
and co-editor of the Georgia State University literary journal Five
Points, which won the National Council of Literary Magazines’
1998 Best New Journal Award.
• Once in a lifetime teacher
Durban is also passionate about working with students. She
transforms her students into lovers of the printed word, through
their own writings and through reading the work of others.
“It takes a lot of energy and time to teach students how to
engage with their work,” Durban said. “I tell them that I take them
seriously. In return, I expect them to work to make their writing
more honest, more generous, more insightful.”
Durban jokes with colleagues that each year she writes a novel’s
worth of comments on her students’ stories. Her commitment pays
off when students acknowledge that they’ve learned to appreciate
the art of writing.
“Professor Durban was my once-in-a-lifetime teacher,” said
senior Aaron Marcus, an economics and public policy double
major. “She taught me to write tautly, yet expressively, to appreciate
writing as artists appreciate the aesthetics of painting.” •
Lifetime Teacher ‘Once - in - a - Lifetime Teacher’
Pam Durban named first Doris Betts professor
B y J b S helton
Steve Exum
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 11
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Liberal Arts Love of the Liberal Arts
David Frey’s vision has boosted the arts
B y C atherine H ouse
Back in the late ’50s when his high school track team
came to UNC for spring training, David Frey ’64 ’67 JD knew
he was destined to be a Tar Heel. He may have been born a full-blooded
Yankee — his family has lived in Grand Rapids, Mich.,
for five generations — but even he couldn’t resist the lure of
springtime in Chapel Hill.
Frey, a third-generation banker (now retired, but busier than
ever), knew his career would be in banking, but he purposefully
opted for an English degree. “The liberal arts are the foundation
of an undergraduate education,” he said. “Every undergraduate
should have exposure to the arts in some form or another.”
Because Frey is so thankful for the great influence Carolina
and the College have had on his life, he continues to give back to
the University time and again and has made it his personal mission
to lure all sorts of people here — from accomplished playwrights
and musicians to his own two sons.
One of 20 cabinet members for the Carolina First Campaign,
Frey helped kick-start the College’s campaign by establishing three
distinguished professorships — one each in dramatic art, music
and American art.
“I consider these
the three legs of the
art stool,” Frey said.
“The arts bring
pleasure to people of
all ages and reflect
mankind’s most
creative efforts.”
While a search
continues for the
Frey Distinguished
Professorship
of American
Art, both Frey
professorships in
dramatic art and
music have been
filled by highly
accomplished and talented scholars.
Leon Katz, a widely published playwright with many
original works, holds the Frey Distinguished Professorship of
Dramatic Art. A legend in the area of American dramaturgy
(where literature meets practical stage practice), Katz has
previously served on the faculties of Carnegie Mellon University,
Yale University School of Drama and the University of California
at Los Angeles.
The Frey Distinguished Professorship of Music is held by
Tim Carter, who also serves as chair of the music department.
Carter, who came to Carolina from Royal Holloway, University of
London, focuses on opera and music of Italy in the 16th and 17th
centuries. He also has a special interest in the musicals of Rodgers
and Hammerstein.
Of the Frey professorship, Carter said, “It encouraged me to
come to UNC and enabled me to take new directions in my own
research on American musical theatre that has also fed into my
teaching. If in passing Hill Hall you hear the sounds of ‘Oklahoma!’
or ‘South Pacific’ echoing through the rafters, give thanks to David,
as do I. His generous support for the arts, and arts scholarship, has
had a striking impact at Carolina.”
Prior to the Carolina First Campaign, Frey, along with his
family’s foundation, established the Frey Foundation Distinguished
Visiting Professorship which brings to campus prominent leaders
in international policy, public affairs and the performing arts. Recent
distinguished
visitors have
included David
Gergen, Christine
Todd Whitman,
Frank Rich,
Harry Belafonte,
former Brazilian
President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso
and Ted Turner.
Frey, who served on the
board of directors of the Arts and
Sciences Foundation from 1991
to 1997 and from 1999 to 2006,
was also pivotal in helping to raise
private funds to supplement an
$8.4 million state appropriation to
complete the Center for Dramatic
Art in 1998.
From arts professors of the
highest caliber to world-renowned
public leaders and performing artists, Frey is all about bringing
the stars to Carolina.
And with help from generous donors like Frey, it’s not
surprising that the stars want to come to Chapel Hill. “Eyes across
the nation are watching the incredible momentum building in
the arts at Carolina,” Frey said. “You have an arts renaissance on
campus, and I’m glad to be a part of it.” •
Back in the late ’50s when his high school track
team came to UNC for spring training, David
Frey ’64 ’67 JD knew
he was
destined
to be a
Tar Heel.
Michael Buck
Ground-breaking
12 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Professor Dinesh Manocha,
a renowned expert in the computer
science field, says the finest products of
his department at UNC are its students.
That may be because the department
is one of the best in the nation, but it
also attests to Manocha’s dedication to
his students and their academic pursuits.
Manocha was awarded the Phi Delta
Theta/Matthew Mason Distinguished
Professorship in the College of Arts and
Sciences in 2006. The professorship was
named in honor of Matthew Mason, a
longtime employee of the fraternity who was
later inducted as a member of the fraternity.
It’s the second College professorship funded
by a Carolina fraternity.
In 2005, philosophy professor C.D.C.
“David” Reeve became the Delta Kappa
Epsilon Distinguished Professor, the first
“Greek professor” named at UNC. Three
sororities have launched campaigns for
distinguished professorships in the College,
including Delta Delta Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma and Chi Omega.
Led by the efforts of Shoff Allison ’98 of Charlotte, N.C.,
nearly 300 Phi Delt alumni contributed more than $750,000
toward the professorship. Allison’s enthusiasm for the campaign,
along with the recognition for Mason, inspired one-third of the
fraternity’s alumni to make gifts.
The professorship links the fraternity with some of the nation’s
best teachers and scholars, such as Manocha, who concentrates his
research on graphics, geometry and robotics, all sub-branches of
computer science. His academic interests include computer-based
simulation, which has a plethora of real-life applications.
“Take, for example, the movies ‘A Bug’s Life’ and ‘Toy
Story,’” Manocha explained. “How do you make the graphics in
these movies look realistic?”
This research has applications in entertainment and gaming —
some recent endeavors are to create genuine emotion of characters
in video games and to produce realistic-sounding synthetic noises
for interactive applications.
Outside the entertainment industry, the U.S. Department of
Defense uses Manocha’s simulation work to prepare soldiers for
training, especially for urban warfare. In addition, his group has
worked closely with designers at Boeing, who employ computer-aided
design methods to generate and validate a computer model
of the 777 and 787 airplanes.
Manocha also contributes to the
medical field by simulating procedures
such as a catheter used in liver cancer
treatment. Simulation techniques
allow processes to be tested and
perfected for optimal performance in
real life. Some of the earlier simulation
technologies produced by his research
group are now used by tens of
thousands of researchers worldwide
and have been licensed to more
than 40 commercial vendors.
Manocha integrates these
realistic applications and research
questions with teaching.
You can discuss cool stuff in
the classroom, he said, like how to
make sure a robotic
vacuum cleaner
covers an entire
room. Students in
his graduate course
“Robot Motion
Planning” recently
tackled this matter.
Manocha believes teaching is a two-way dialogue in which
the professor should ask open questions to stimulate further
academic inquiry.
“Computer science is still evolving,” he said, “There are many
opportunities to ask, ‘Are we doing this right, or can we do it
better?’ And the classroom is the best place to figure that out.��
Manocha and his research group are extending those learning
opportunities outside UNC boundaries through outreach programs
meant to expose middle and high school students to new computer
technologies, such as a computer-based 3-D painting system.
Through this haptic paint technology, students “paint” on a computer
screen with a virtual paintbrush, each brushstroke simulating what
would be produced with real paint. Manocha advocates this program
to stimulate young people’s excitement about computer science.
Manocha said he’s honored to be the Phi Delta Theta/Matthew
Mason Distinguished Professor. As funding for projects becomes
harder to obtain, the support from this endowed professorship gives
him many more options, including the flexibility to pursue a “new
crazy idea,” which in the past have led to significant breakthroughs
with a multitude of applications. •
Greeks’ Groundbreaking Support
Computer scientist holds second professorship funded by UNC fraternity
B y C aroline H utcheson ’ 0 8
Dinesh
Manocha,
a renowned
expert in the computer science
field, says the finest products of his department
at UNC are its students.
Dan Sears
• Research funds make
a difference
sixth among
all states in
public funding
of higher
education, the College relies more than
ever on private funding to recruit, nurture
and enhance its faculty. In particular,
the University’s outstanding liberal arts
tradition hinges upon its ability to recruit
and retain superlative faculty in the arts
and sciences.
Faculty support was Carolina First’s
highest priority. Donors responded
with $154 million in endowment and
expendable gifts, creating endowed
professorships for senior and mid-career
scholars; faculty fellowships in
the College’s Institute for the Arts and
Humanities (IAH); Faculty Partners
funds and faculty excellence funds, which
provide research and course development
grants; travel monies and summer salaries.
Ralph Mosley ’63 worked his way
through UNC selling Bibles door to door
for Southwestern Company of Nashville,
Tenn. Fifteen years later, he was appointed
the company’s CEO. In addition to the
$250,000 he and his wife, Juli, donated
toward need-based scholarships, the
couple committed $1 million for faculty
recruitment and retention in the College.
In 2006-2007, the Mosley Faculty
Enhancement Fund supported UNC
chemist Matt Redinbo whose research
focused on killing antibiotic-resistant
bacteria. He took an unusual approach
that no one had ever tried. Other
universities were looking appreciatively
at Redinbo. So the College awarded
him additional financial support for his
research, funded in part by the Mosley
Fund and other private recruitment and
retention funds, to show how much
Carolina wanted to keep him. Redinbo
used the money to buy a key piece of
equipment to test his idea.
“We were able to go after something
only we had thought of,” said Redinbo,
whose work has received national media
attention. “We wouldn’t have been able to
do that if it weren’t for this generous, no-strings-
attached kind of support.”
Redinbo took the faculty support as
“a mandate to try something that was a
little risky.”
“Not only can we stop the transfer
of antibiotic-resistant genes, but we can
kill bacteria that are harboring these genes,
oshua Knobe at 31 was a rising superstar
in the world of philosophy before he
had taught a single class at Carolina.
His work in the new field of
“experimental philosophy” has drawn
accolades from fellow scholars for its
pioneering methods of research, which
include chatting with people in a public
park to test how ordinary people think.
Knobe had just completed his Ph.D.
at Princeton in 2005 when he had job
offers from five universities. The Spray-
Randleigh Fellowship helped bring him
to Chapel Hill.
“It was wonderful the way, just as
I was trying to make a decision about
which job to take, UNC was able to show
this strong commitment to encouraging
junior faculty engaged in interdisciplinary
research,” Knobe said.
Early in the Carolina First campaign,
a $1.2 million expendable gift from
the Spray Foundation of Atlanta and
the Randleigh Foundation Trust of
Chapel Hill provided additional research
support for faculty studying European
and American culture and enabled them
to integrate their scholarship into the
undergraduate classroom. It also helped
the College of Arts and Sciences recruit
and retain more than 77 outstanding
scholars, such as Knobe.
• Faculty Support gifts
top $154 Million
The College’s efforts to recruit
and retain its faculty are increasingly
challenged by ever sharper competition
from wealthy private institutions, peer
public research universities, and even
government and industry. Even with
generous support from the citizens of
North Carolina, which last year ranked
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 13
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Faculty Development
B y D e l H e l t o n & N a n c y E . O a t e s
RIGHT: Chemist
Matt Redinbo
benefited from
private funds that
supported his
research on killing
antibiotic-resistant
bacteria.
Private support helps keep and attract outstanding professors
continued
Isaac Sandlin J
Dan Sears
selectively killing them,” he said. “That
has the potential to be a big contribution
to our battle against antibiotic resistant
bacterial infections.”
Political science professor Mark
Crescenzi also benefited from faculty
support funds. He received
a research budget as part of a
retention package when Texas
A&M University was attempting
to recruit him. The money came
from the Wilson Family Fund.
Loyal Wilson ’70, his wife
and daughters created the fund
to keep Carolina professors who
“inspire students and instill in them
a passion for learning and a lifelong
dedication to their communities,”
said Wilson, the founder and
a managing director of Primus
Capital Funds, a private equity
firm in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and a
member of the Arts and Sciences
Foundation board of directors.
Crescenzi and his team are studying
the way governments and terrorist groups
interact. The research is important to
understanding and creating strategy to ease
tensions in the Middle East, for instance.
The research funds allowed him to go to
some high-profile conferences and take
graduate students with him.
The retention package, along
with other support, also afforded him
the opportunity to develop a successful
grant proposal for the National Science
Foundation that provides $500,000 over
three years.
“You could make the argument
that the retention package paid for itself,”
he said.
Crescenzi collaborates with
sociologist Charles Kurzman and Robert
Jenkins, the director of UNC’s Center
for Slavic, Eurasian and East European
Studies, both of whom study problems of
conflict in international relations.
“The College of Arts and Sciences
said, ‘We really want you to stay and keep
doing what you’re doing,’” Crescenzi said.
“I have colleagues around the country
in state and private institutions who are
14 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
RIGHT: Political
scientist Mark Crescenzi
received research
money from the Wilson
Family Fund. BELOW:
Historian Yasmin Saikia.
Isaac Sandlin
Partners Connect
• Fresh Ideas and Renewed
Commitment to Teaching
awarded semester-long IAH fellowships
during 2007-2008 through a competitive
process. The time away from the
classroom relieves faculty from teaching
responsibilities and enables them to work
in Chapel Hill without interruption on a
project for the semester.
Fellows participate in a weekly
seminar that provides a forum for
discussing their projects with colleagues
in other departments. Younger faculty
learn from senior members, and more
experienced faculty gain insights from
those more recently in graduate school.
The experience prepares the
fellows to return reinvigorated to the
classroom with fresh ideas and a renewed
commitment to teaching.
• Faculty partners connect
The popular Faculty Partners program
continues to help faculty who requested
funding for specific projects. During
Carolina First, more than 50 donors made
gifts to the Faculty Partners Fund, which
provides faculty with financial support
for their research, whether it’s for lab
equipment, travel to a conference, or other
costs related to their research and unmet by
other funding sources.
Donors pledge a $25,000 expendable
gift — $5,000 a year for five years — to
become Faculty Partners, and they are
matched with faculty members who have
submitted proposals for funding.
These are examples of how Faculty
Partners are making a difference for faculty:
always
struggling
for research
funds. This
is a dream
to not have
to be in that
position.”
ideas renewed
commitment teaching
Classics professor Carolyn Connor
spent her 2006 spring break in church
— 50 of them to be more precise — in
Rome and Ravenna, Italy. A Chapman
Family Fellow, she was researching her
book, Saints and Spectacle: Byzantine Mosaics
in Context, and the travel time and funding
were only part of the fellowship’s benefits.
“This was an immensely rewarding
semester, because the fellows of the
Institute for the Arts and Humanities (IAH)
made such a supportive and stimulating
group of colleagues with whom to discuss
my work,” Connor said.
“I was grateful for the travel stipend,
which allowed me to travel to Italy and
observe a number of mosaiced churches.
The first-hand experience of standing in
and ‘sharing’ the space with its medieval
viewers is vital for a realization of the
function and impact of monumental art.”
Connor’s fellowship, funded by
Max C. Chapman Jr. ’66 of New York,
is one of 17 named IAH fellowships.
Two dozen College faculty from the
arts, humanities and social sciences were
Dan Sears
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 15
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
• Todd BenDor, city and regional
planning, is studying the impact of
urban development on environmental
systems, specifically wetland restoration
and creation. With his Faculty Partner
funds, BenDor will purchase research
materials and hire a student assistant. He
is also collaborating with the Renaissance
he Hyde Family Foundation pledged
$5 million to endow the Institute for
the Arts and Humanities’ (IAH)
Academic Leadership Program in the
College. The program was named for Ruel
W. Tyson, religious studies professor and
former longtime director of the institute.
Foundation president Barbara Hyde ’83
and her husband, former AutoZone CEO
Pitt Hyde ’65, have supported many of the
institute’s programs, and gave the lead gift
toward IAH’s permanent home, Hyde Hall,
completed on McCorkle Place in 2002.
The institute, said Barbara Hyde, pro-vides
opportunities for faculty development
that didn’t exist previously on campus.
“I’ve been fortunate over the years
to have had meaningful relationships with
individual professors who inspired me as
a student and with entrepreneurial faculty
who I worked
with when I was
a development
officer at UNC,”
Hyde said. “It
was from those
relationships
that I came to
appreciate the
central, powerful
impact faculty have
on the University.”
Now that
she serves on the
UNC Board of
Trustees, Hyde said she appreciates even
more deeply the importance of retaining that
intellectual talent.
“We’re in a very competitive market
where universities are raiding each other
all the time,” Hyde said. “Great businesses
know that one of their first priorities
is attracting and retaining talent. The
University recognizes that as well. If we lose
faculty and have to go into the market to
replace them, it will cost a whole lot more.
It’s smarter to invest money on the front end
to retain those scholars and researchers.”
The Ruel Tyson Academic Leadership
Program in the IAH sponsors seven to 10
leadership fellows annually. The Academic
Leadership Fellows, who come from all
departments and schools at UNC, participate
in a weeklong leadership training program,
two overnight retreats, monthly leadership
development forums, weekly seminars to
discuss critical issues facing the University
and other networking opportunities.
“In graduate school, no one is taught
how to be a department chair,” said Joy
Kasson, professor and chair of American
studies and a 2004 Leadership Fellow. “To
be effective, you have to know the ways
in which you can get things done at the
University. You have to know effective
leadership skills, how to manage personnel,
think about budgets, create new programs and
implement things you want to accomplish.”
Kasson, a three-time IAH Faculty Fellow,
began teaching at Carolina in 1971. She was
among a group of faculty who proposed that
a program be established to address issues
relevant to research and teaching.
“The Academic Leadership Program
helps faculty think of themselves as
innovators, either in formal administrative
positions, or by creating new programs or
initiatives,” she said. “For me, the program
helped me learn more about directing an
academic department and finding ways to
make it grow. In American studies, we have
added more faculty, more undergraduate
majors, and we are now planning a graduate
program — all of which I can trace back to
the training I received through the generosity
of this program.”
“Over the years, the leadership program
has built bridges,” Kasson added. “It has made
the fellows more connected, more loyal and
more committed to staying at UNC.” •
ABOVE: American studies professor
Joy Kasson was a Leadership Fellow.
RIGHT: Donor Barbara Hyde.
Computing Institute in Chapel Hill to
create computer models of urban growth
to assess the effects of land use change on
water quality and availability in the face
of drought and infrastructure stress.
• Yasmin Saikia, history, is
preparing maps and illustrations,
compiling indexes and editing
manuscripts for her two books about the
1971 Indo-Pakistani War. The first book
is based on 10 oral accounts by survivors
in Bangladesh. The second book weaves
together political and historical events
with the experiences of violence suffered
by victims and perpetrators in Pakistan,
Bangladesh and India. •
Supporting Academic
Leadership B y N a n c y E . O a t e s
Isaac Sandlin
T
Global Giving opens new doors
Carolina First Gl o b a l Ed u c a t i o n
B y D e e R e i d
16 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
programs,” said Robert Miles, associate dean
for study abroad and international exchanges.
Private gifts have created about 25 new
scholarship funds for undergraduate study
abroad. The Phillips Ambassadors Program,
funded by former U.S. Ambassador Earl
N. “Phil” Phillips ’62 of High Point, N.C.,
enables up to 50 undergraduates per year to
study in Asia (see example page 18).
Another innovative initiative, the
Carolina Southeast Asia Summer Program
funded by Alston Gardner ’77, provides
scholarships covering all program costs for
25 students a year to study in Singapore,
Malaysia and Thailand at the end of their
first undergraduate year.
A generous gift from Amy and Robert
Brinkley of Charlotte also supports Asian
studies. The Grier/Woods Presbyterian China
Initiative, named for family members who
were missionaries in China during the late
18th and 20th centuries, provides: scholarships
for students to study Mandarin in Beijing,
travel fellowships for faculty research and
course development activities in Asia, and an
additional lecturer in Mandarin language at
UNC. Amy Woods Brinkley, a 1978 graduate
of UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, was
named one of the 50 most powerful women
of 2007 by Fortune magazine.
Several scholarship programs support
study abroad for students from North
Carolina. Mary Anne Dickson ’63 and
Martha O’Neal Johnson ’76 established
a scholarship in honor of their late father,
Charles Garland Johnson Sr., a banker and
community leader in Elkin, N.C. This
endowment fund, which gives preference
to students from Surry, Wilkes and Yadkin
counties, supported study abroad scholarships
for 15 North Carolina students in 2007.
(See page 17 for a story about one scholarship
winner and page 23 for a profile on Mary Anne
Dickson.)
Dickson’s husband, Alan, was instru-mental
in establishing the Harris Teeter
Study Abroad Scholarship with gifts from
Harris Teeter and the Dickson Foundation.
The Harris Teeter supermarket chain is a
subsidiary of Ruddick Corp. which Alan
Dickson chaired until his retirement. When
fully funded, the scholarship will support
study abroad for about 25 in-state students
each year, with preference to Harris Teeter
associates or their children.
An anonymous gift established the
Jenkins Study Abroad and International
Experience Fund, earmarked for students
from eastern North Carolina.
The Carolina First campaign also raised
about $4 million for endowed professorships
to attract and support outstanding faculty
who specialize in international topics. These
include:
• The Anthony Harrington
Professorship in Latin American Studies,
established with a gift from Anthony
Harrington ’63, former U.S. Ambassador
to Brazil, and his wife, Hope. The gift
was matched by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation to create a $1.6 million
endowment.
• The Gussenhoven Distinguished
Professorship in Latin American Studies,
established with a gift from John and
Harriette Gussenhoven, 1968 and 1971
UNC graduates.
• The Jordan Family Distinguished
Professorship in International Studies,
established by a bequest from William Jordan
’38 in honor of his late mother, Louise
Manning Huske Jordan. The benefactor’s
nephew Stuart Jordan ’85 and his wife, Sheri,
funded the professorship during William
Jordan’s lifetime; Dr. Jordan died March 10.
The College also received $2 million for
Asian studies and the Carolina Asia Center, as
part of the nationwide Freeman Foundation
Undergraduate Asian Studies Funding
Initiative. The gift funds faculty positions in
Chinese and Japanese language and literature,
course development, library acquisitions,
a speakers and visitors series, study abroad
scholarships and programs in Asia. The
Foundation’s support made it possible for
Carolina to become the first university in the
UNC system to offer undergraduate majors
in Chinese and Japanese. •
Not too long ago, fewer than one in
five Carolina undergraduates studied abroad,
and it was difficult for international experts
to work together on campus because they
were spread across the University.
Now more than one-third of Carolina
students go abroad before graduating and
a gleaming four-story building has brought
together key international programs under
one roof.
Nearly 10 percent of Carolina First
funds in the College support international
initiatives. The impact is already being
felt by students and faculty in Chapel Hill
and abroad.
“International education and the
perspective it provides can’t be over
emphasized in today’s interconnected
world,” said David F. McSpadden, chair of
the Advisory Board for Global Education,
who received his undergraduate degree in
international studies from UNC in 1983.
“Wherever a student’s career interests lie
— medicine, business, art, government,
journalism or elsewhere — being able to
work confidently and adeptly with peers
across cultures will be fundamental to success.”
With support from Advisory Board
volunteers and many donors, the College
has raised nearly $36 million for international
initiatives. About $19 million supports
scholarships for studies overseas and another
$4.5 million underwrites programs that
enhance study abroad, such as UNC faculty-led
field research seminars, international
curriculum development and graduate
student fellowships.
Carolina First donors gave more than
$7.2 million to the FedEx Global Education
Center, which was funded by a combination
of public and private funds, including a
$5 million gift from FedEx Corp. (see page 19).
Private funds for scholarships and
programs have resulted in more students
going abroad. Last year about 1,350 Carolina
undergraduates studied abroad in more than
300 programs in 70 countries.
“Private funds have been fundamental
to the expansion of our study abroad
In the Shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 17
trip from the Nairobi airport to
Kilimanjaro Base Camp.
“We saw giraffes and zebras,
but the most National-Geo-like
[scene] was the Maasai herding
their cows with their colorful
garb blowing in the wind in
front of the sunset,” she wrote
in an e-mail from the bush.
She lived with other
students in huts called
“bandas.” They got used to
outdoor showers and the
ever-present dust and heat
during the dry season.
“What surprised me most was the
overall comfort I began to feel with being
in such a different place,” Glasgow wrote.
“Dirt under our nails and in every crack in
our skin, bandanas and t-shirts, same outfit
three days in a row, cold showers while
peeking over the door at the acacia trees,
brushing my teeth in front of Kilimanjaro
... the squawk of the huge ibis birds each
morning, rice, mashed potatoes, pasta, beans
and pineapple every day ... very starry skies
and already at least three rainbows(!),” she
recalled. “Everything became a comfort,
and this place began to feel like home.”
Glasgow took language, wildlife
management and environmental studies
classes with Kenyan professors in an open-air
“chumba” or outdoors on hilltops with
panoramic views of surrounding ranches
and distant Nairobi.
She also participated in wildlife research
expeditions, where she camped with the
other students in national parks within
earshot of the roar of lions and leopards
at night. There were no fences between
their camp and the wildlife, but they were
protected by experienced armed guards.
“These guys were amazing,” Glasgow
wrote. “They could hear a lioness breathing
while we were talking, and then they
chased it away!”
Glasgow observed buffalo, cheetahs,
cranes, crocodiles, eagles, elephants, gazelles,
giraffes, hippopotami, hyenas, lions, warthogs
and zebras. She collected data on the animals
and analyzed the impact of local agricultural
practices on wildlife and their habitat. She
interviewed crop farmers and visited Maasai
herders in a traditional “boma” or village.
She learned about the conflicting
needs of crop farmers, cattle herders and
wildlife — all relying on the land for their
survival.
“Our goal is to help figure out how
to go about a sustainable solution to the
human-wildlife conflict in this area without
compromising the economic and cultural
livelihoods of the people here,” she wrote.
“It is very complicated. ...This land is
suitable for pastoralism (herding and keeping
cattle), however the Maasai are feeling
both political and economic pressure to
switch over to an agricultural existence. The
farmers around our campsite told us about
the wildlife that ruin their crops.”
Glasgow also witnessed a Maasai rite-of-
passage ceremony that takes place every
10 years as villagers come together to induct
young boys into Moranhood, the status of
a warrior. “This was a beautiful sight,” she
wrote. “There was chanting and jumping,
face-painting ... and all of the men of the
village were there to watch their sons.”
She said her semester in Kenya was
everything she wished for, and more.
“I was hoping to not only learn about
the wildlife and the conservation problems
facing this area, but also something about
myself by being placed outside of my
culture and my comfort zone,” she wrote in
a December e-mail. “By being here I have
really learned how people of the world are
so different but still so alike. I have learned
the frustrations and rewards of working in a
team, and I have learned how to be happy
with less.” •
— Anna Glasgow returned to North
Carolina before violence broke out in Kenya over
the recent presidential election. She is continuing
her study of Kiswahili at UNC and hoping for
peace in Kenya, so that she may return to work
there in the future.
ABOVE: Anna Glasgow, center,
enjoys a pickup soccer game in Kenya.
Carolina First
B y D e e R e i d
Gl o b a l Ed u c a t i o n
Anna Glasgow ’08 of Salisbury, N.C., had
been abroad before for church missions in
Latin America and a European tour. But her
first academic experience overseas this past fall
— open-air Kiswahili language classes and
wildlife research in the shadow of Mount
Kilimanjaro — was profoundly different.
A biology major with an environmental
studies minor, Glasgow collected data on
the habits of an extraordinary array of exotic
creatures in the wild. She learned firsthand
about a land and culture that most of us
know only through National Geographic or
the Discovery Channel. And she experienced
the surreal thrill of realizing that those
friendly armed guards really were necessary
to keep hungry wildlife away from her camp.
Glasgow was one of 34 American
students studying and conducting research
through the School for Field Studies Kenya
Wildlife Management Studies program. Her
trip was supported by a Charles Garland
Johnson Sr. Scholarship, made possible by
a gift from College of Arts and Sciences
alumni Mary Anne Dickson ’63 and Martha
O’Neal Johnson ’76 in honor of their late
father, a banker and community leader in
Elkin, N.C. The scholarship is for UNC-Chapel
Hill students from North Carolina,
with preference to those from Surry, Wilkes
and Yadkin counties.
Glasgow realized she was in for an
adventure when she gazed out the Range
Rover window during the bumpy five-hour
China’s urban building boom
Carolina First
18 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
China.” This was one of three
comparative globalization study
abroad programs, also made pos-sible
by private funds.
“The goal was to
introduce the students to China’s
extraordinary recent growth and
development, but do it in a way
that connected to China’s deep
past as well as the globalized
world at large,” said Campanella,
an assistant professor in the
department of city and regional
planning. “Even without the
travel, it would have been an
intensive bit of education. We literally went
from the Silk Road to the Special Economic
Zones in four weeks.”
They attended lectures in the morning
and took field trips in the afternoon to visit
developers, contractors or businesses, or to
visit urban villages, where they encountered
massive factories and crowded public
housing developments.
“Entire families live in a single room,”
Jacobs said.
She was especially interested in “The
Great Peace Village,” a farming community
in Xi’an. The village has survived for
hundreds of years in one of the most arid
parts of western China. Its most notable
feature is an ancient form of sustainable
building, the “yao dong” house, tucked
into the hillsides.
“Houses are built like caves into
the ground to increase surface area for
farming,” said Jacobs. The earthen homes,
the ultimate in “green architecture,” are
also warm in winter and cool in summer.
Most of the villagers had never
seen a Westerner before, she said. “As we
approached each house, the men and
women climbed their trees to pick fruit to
stuff in our pockets and bags. They had a
celebration with music and fruit and lots of
pictures. We were welcomed warmly.”
In addition to classes and field trips,
the UNC students conducted independent
research. Jacobs explored how China reached
its current point of intense development
and what it must do to sustain it, including
economic, environmental and infrastructure
needs and impacts.
“China will continue to develop,” Jacobs
said. “The goal now is to ensure that China’s
development is sustainable and beneficial
to all its people. One in five people live in
China. If China suffers, so does the world.”
Jacobs enjoyed getting to know Chinese
students at each of the universities that hosted
their classes. Many of them spoke English
well, and they appreciated the opportunity
to further hone their language skills by
conversing with Americans. At first the
conversation would involve “small talk”
about American television shows. “Oh, yes,
I watch ‘Sex and the City’ and the ‘West
Wing,’” they would tell Jacobs.
“But once they were comfortable,
we were able to discuss the relationship
between China and America,” Jacobs said.
“And when they truly trusted me, we were
able to talk about the Cultural Revolution
and Communism. I still keep in touch with
a few of the students I met.”
“My experience in China was incred-ible,”
Jacobs said. “But it does not matter
where you study abroad as long as you
stretch yourself past what you experience in a
classroom and immerse yourself in a different
culture. Our world is shrinking, and borders
are breaking away. I recommend studying
abroad to every student at Carolina.” •
ABOVE: Sarah Jacobs, center, visited with Chinese villagers
at a “yao dong” home built into the hillside.
Gl o b a l Ed u c a t i o n
Why would an international studies
major focusing on Arabic and the Middle
East spend a summer abroad studying the
urban building boom in China? Sarah
Jacobs ’08 from High Point, N.C., had
plenty of good reasons.
For starters, she is interested in
economic development, and China is
experiencing the fastest growing economy
in the world. Last summer UNC urban
planning experts Thomas J. Campanella and
Yan Song were leading an intensive four-week
trip to urban centers in China to study
the unprecedented building boom taking
place there. Campanella is the author of The
Concrete Dragon: China’s Urban Revolution and
What It Means for the World (see page 56).
“Though my academic focus is in the
Middle East, the comparative study in China
will be invaluable,” Jacobs explained. “What
happens in China affects the world.”
Studying in Asia would also
complement her other international
experiences. She had already studied abroad
in London and Oxford, through UNC’s
Honors Program (see page 28), and she knew
she would be headed to Cairo for the fall
2007 semester. “I wanted to study in China
to become aware of other parts of the world,”
she said.
A major factor leading Jacobs to China
was High Point business executive and former
U.S. Ambassador Earl N. “Phil” Phillips ’62,
who made a major gift to the University to
establish the Phillips Ambassadors Program,
providing scholarships for study in Asia for
up to 50 Carolina undergraduates each year.
Jacobs was among the inaugural group of
2007 “Phillips Ambassadors.”
“I would not have had the opportunity
to study in China if it wasn’t for Mr.
Phillips’ generosity,” she said. “The Phillips
Ambassadors program allowed me to be a
truly international student.”
Jacobs and 14 other Carolina under-graduates
spent a week with Campanella
and Song in each of four cities: Hong Kong,
Shenzhen, Xi’an and Shanghai, as part of
their seminar on “Transforming Urban
B y D e e R e i d
Portal to the world
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 19
The Global
Education Center was
completed with state
bond revenues and
more than $7.2 million
in private funds,
including $5 million
from FedEx Corp.
“The FedEx Global
Education Center at
the University of North
Carolina will epitomize
our belief in innovation,”
said Fred Smith, FedEx
chair, president and chief
executive officer, speaking at the official
dedication in October. “This building will
serve as the nucleus of intellectual and social
activity for faculty, students, alumni and the
community of international scholars from
around the world.”
The Center has quickly become a
hub of international teaching, learning and
outreach.
The Munro-McMillan Gallery Lounge
on the second floor features rotating art
and photography exhibits. The gallery
space is supported by gifts from Donald
Munro ’82 and Peter McMillan ’81, who
were roommates at Carolina. Munro was a
Morehead scholar from Great Britain who
majored in Latin American studies, and
McMillan was a business major from Texas.
Munro serves on UNC’s Advisory Board
for Global Education.
A reception area for International
Student and Scholar Services on the
second floor honors the class of 1938.
Members of the class, who lost friends to
World War II, created an endowment that
supports independent studies abroad for
undergraduates.
The Arthur S. and Martha D. DeBerry
Family Conference Room on the third floor
is supported by a gift from Arthur DeBerry
JD ’57, a member of the Advisory Board for
Global Education.
A fundraising effort is also under way
to name a prominent space in the building
to honor UNC anthropology professor
James Peacock and his wife, Florence, for
their lifelong dedication and service to
international education at Carolina. Professor
Peacock was director of the University
Center for International Studies (now called
the Center for Global Initiatives) and one of
the key champions for creating the Global
Education Center. Led by Marguerite
Hutchins of Chapel Hill and Arthur DeBerry,
the campaign has raised more than $450,000
in gifts and pledges from friends, family and
former students around the world.
The Global Education Center is
already a hot spot for dinners, receptions,
films, lectures, art exhibits, music and
cultural events involving the University
and the wider community. The first major
international event in the building was a
reception and dinner last March honoring
former Brazilian President Fernando
Henrique Cardoso, the Frey Foundation
Distinguished Visiting Professor in the
College of Arts and Sciences.
Last year the African Studies Center
hosted a conference honoring distinguished
colleague Bereket Selassie, with a keynote
address by Gloria Steinem.
The Global Education Center hosted
an African music concert by Mamadou
Diabate, and performances by Cambodian
dancers, musicians and singers, and a Japanese
drumming group. Public school students
flocked to the Center for a program with
African and Caribbean drummers and
educators. A public lecture on global poverty
packed the Mandela auditorium in January.
The building’s architect and designer,
Andrea Leers of Leers Weinzapfel Associates,
said she designed the Center to bring
people together: “It’s a meeting place,
common grounds. That was the idea, that
there were crossroads, places to gather, for
communication and exchange.” •
— To learn more about the FedEx Global
Education Center and international initiatives,
check out the new UNC Global Web site at:
global.unc.edu.
ABOVE: The FedEx Global Education Center is a hub
of international teaching, research and cultural activities.
Carolina First Gl o b a l Ed u c a t i o n
Dan Sears
The most visible evidence on campus of the
University’s commitment to international
learning is the new $39 million FedEx
Global Education Center. You can’t miss
the gleaming four-story structure with its
rooftop garden and street-side patio at the
corner of Pittsboro and McCauley streets.
But what’s going on inside UNC’s portal to
the world tells the real story.
For the first time, the Study Abroad
Office, the Director of International
Programs and Sciences, and seven other
major international and regional programs
in the College are housed together in
modern offices surrounding a three-story
atrium. These include: the Curriculum for
International and Area Studies, the African
Studies Center, Carolina Asia Center,
Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle
East and Muslim Civilizations, the Center
for European Studies, Institute for the
Study of the Americas, and the Center for
Slavic, Eurasia and East European Studies.
Other programs inside include: the Office
of International Affairs, Development for
Global Education, the Center for Global
Initiatives, and International Student and
Scholar Services.
The building provides classrooms,
offices, exhibit space and the 256-seat
Nelson Mandela Auditorium. The fourth
floor will house an institute to support
collaborative international research for UNC
faculty and visiting scholars.
B y D e e R e i d
Building
20 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Nancy Allbritton’s research crosses many
boundaries, incorporating chemistry, physics,
biology, engineering and medicine. Her new
space in Max C. Chapman Jr. Hall has room
to house them all.
Allbritton, the Paul Debreczeny
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, was
wooed from the University of California,
Irvine, in 2007 to Carolina on the strengths
of a new laboratory in Chapman, as well as
UNC’s reputation for outstanding chemistry
and cancer research.
“I would not have come without that
space,” said Allbritton. “To get such a large
space is very difficult, if not impossible, at
most universities. It will really benefit the
lab to have everyone in one place. We have
people working in multiple disciplines, and
we want them to be talking to each other.”
At UNC, Allbritton will focus on
developing new technologies for biological
and medical problems. One project involves
inventing new chemical tests and instruments
for diagnosing chronic myelogenous leukemia
(CML). Some CML patients have a genetic
mutation that affects how they respond to
the drug Gleevec, the best available treatment.
Allbritton’s research will allow doctors to
precisely tailor the amount of drug to the
individual needs of people with CML.
Carolina First
Science
B y B e c k y O s k i n
New facilities
help faculty
and students
break new
ground
TOP TO BOTTOM: Caudill Labs provides
much-needed space for chemistry •
In Chapman Hall, students watch UNC
marine scientists teaching under water
from the Florida Keys • Chapman Hall
is attracting science stars to Carolina
• Chapman’s lecture halls are optimal
teaching and learning facilities.
Dan Sears Lars Sahl
Lars Sahl
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Dean Holden Thorp (left)
with Lowry Caudill, who led science complex fundraising
efforts • (From left), Chancellor James Moeser,
Max Chapman Jr., UNC Trustee Nelson Schwab and Senior
Associate Dean for Sciences Bruce Carney • Nancy
Allbritton enjoys new space in Chapman Hall • Caudill
Labs is the last building to be constructed on Polk Place
Carolina First
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 21
While Allbritton’s laboratory
was completed in February, many
College faculty had already moved
into Caudill and Chapman Halls,
the first two buildings completed as
part of the Carolina Physical Science
Complex. Partially funded by $22
million raised through the Carolina
First campaign and $84 million from
a higher education bond referendum
approved by N.C. voters, the $205
million complex is the largest
construction project in the
University’s history. Alumnus
Lowry Caudill ’79, who
made a lead gift, led the
fundraising efforts.
“This has been a labor
of love for me,” said Caudill.
“When I’m talking to
people about this, it is from
the heart. It’s not only to
educate the students — we
also need it for the future of
North Carolina,” he said.
“We have all sorts of
research technologies within
UNC, and to take that and
transfer that into the private
sector, to allow companies
to be created, jobs to be created, for North
Carolina is a wonderful thing,” Caudill said.
The W. Lowry and Susan S. Caudill
Laboratories — the last of two buildings to
open in phase one of the Carolina Physical
Science Complex and the last building ever
to be constructed on Polk Place — was
officially dedicated April 26, 2007. The
complex’s Royce Murray Quadrangle
honors the longtime Carolina chemistry
professor who was Caudill’s mentor. The
brick plaza outside Caudill Labs is named
for William F. Little, former chemistry
department chair and Research Triangle
Park co-founder.
With about 120,000 square feet,
Caudill Laboratories provides substantial
research laboratory and office space for
the nation’s No. 1 program in analytical
chemistry and the top 15 overall depart-ment
of chemistry (according to U.S.
News & World Report) — adding to existing
space in the Kenan Laboratories (1971) and
Morehead Laboratories (1985). The four-story
building houses 52,000 square feet
of chemistry research laboratories, 7,000
square feet of faculty offices and conference
space, and 2,000 square feet of “open”
student space.
A $5 million gift to the College from
alumnus Max Carrol Chapman Jr. ’66,
helped fund the first building, Chapman
Hall, which opened in fall 2006.
The impact was immediate for the
department of marine sciences, which
moved from the basement of Venable Hall
to Chapman while it waits for space in
new buildings which will replace Venable.
New and
senior faculty
are excited
about using a
4,500-square-foot
fluids
laboratory,
including a
120-foot-long
wave tank and a wind tunnel,
which will allow for new
collaborations between the
mathematics and marine
sciences departments.
“We have a renewed
vigor to raise our visibility,”
said department chair Brent
McKee, the Mary and
Watts Hill Jr. Distinguished
Professor. “We’ve had
excellent students despite the
fact they had to deal with
cramped facilities, and I think
[the new space] is really going to
pay off in increased recruitment
of graduate students.”
Chapman features a remote
observing control room for the
SOAR telescope in Chile, 4,600
miles to the south, and a rooftop
observatory deck for astronomy students
and faculty. The glass-walled Constance and
Leonard Goodman Remote Observing
Room in Chapman, located in a zoolike
habitat near the building’s main entrance,
draws passing students who watch
astronomers at work. The Goodman family
is a longtime supporter of physics and
astronomy at Carolina, where Leonard was
a student in the 1940s.
While the telescope was in a testing
phase this fall, astronomy professor Gerald
Cecil and senior Dmitry Rashkeev took
some pioneering pictures of the planet
Mercury from the observing room.
The images could be some of the best
ever taken of Mercury’s uncharted half,
normally hidden by the sun’s glare.
S c i e n c e CO m p l e x
cont inued
Steve Exum
Dan Sears
22 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First S c i e n c e CO m p l e x
As head of Avery County Bank, Martha
Guy led the family-owned institution to
the top of its class. Founded by her father
in 1913, the bank was named first among
community banks by American Banker in
1998 and had $72 million in assets and
$54 million in deposits in 2003, according to
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
But Guy never set out to become
a banking legend. She was drawn to
chemistry and spent her undergraduate
years at Carolina roaming Venable Hall.
After graduating in 1942, Guy returned the
following year to pursue a master’s degree
in chemistry, but war intervened.
Guy’s father, Edwin, asked her to return
to her hometown of Newland and lead the
bank while her brother Robert served in
World War II. Broken-hearted, Guy went
home. But the people she met during her
early years as a banker convinced her to
stay. “They were all so nice,” she said.
During the next 60 years, Avery County
Bank became a national leader through its
focus on community banking and supporting
local businesses like Christmas tree farms.
Despite many offers, Guy resisted selling
the bank until 2003, when she was 81.
The sale to First Citizens Bank finally
allowed Guy to focus on her first love
— Carolina’s chemistry labs.
Her gift of a charitable remainder trust
funded the first floor of the Caudill Building
in the Carolina Physical Science Complex,
which houses the Martha Guy Laboratories.
“For years I’ve wanted to give back,”
Guy said.
Guy has since returned to Carolina to
meet the faculty and students who will be
housed in the new science buildings.
“I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the
professors. I still love chemistry, even
though I don’t remember any of it,” said
Guy, laughing. •
A love for
Carolina
Chemistry
B y B e c k y O s k i n
Several floors above
the observing room is the
new rooftop observatory.
Because students
taking Astronomy 101
previously had to work in
shifts on four telescopes
on the observing deck at
Morehead Planetarium,
some had to make their
observations in poor light
conditions. The larger
setup in Chapman has
more room for students
and faculty, said Bruce
Carney, senior associate
dean for sciences.
“The new observing deck at
Chapman enables the telescope-based
labs to be taught all at once, and at a time
when the sky is dark, unlike the previous
sequential sessions at Morehead where one
group often had to try to work in twilight,”
said Carney, who is also the Samuel Baron
Distinguished Professor of Astronomy.
Also in Chapman, two high-tech
lecture halls named for Vicki ’92 and
David Craver ’92 and Stephen M.
Cumbie ’70 ’73 MBA, who supported the
science complex, provide optimal learning
— and teaching — facilities.
In old labs in Phillips Hall, the
Institute for Advanced Materials,
Nanoscience and Technology had to deal
with vibrations from cars and trucks in an
adjacent parking lot, power lines and the
building’s window air conditioner. Since
the move to Chapman, Rich Superfine,
Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor in
physics and astronomy, discovered that
the data from a microscope he uses to
examine single molecules of DNA in
studies of blood clotting is “considerably
quieter.”
“The better measurements I think
will allow us to better determine the
forces involved when cells divide and
help us understand the process of clotting
better,” he said.
• Computer
Science
expands
In its nearly 45-year
history, the department
of computer science has
outgrown eight buildings.
In late 2008, it will
expand into its ninth
location — Frederick
P. Brooks Jr. Hall, now
under construction
adjacent to Sitterson Hall,
the department’s current
home. Brooks is the first
facility to be built in
phase two of the science
complex building effort. Former students
made a gift to name the building after the
department’s founder and 20-year chair.
Fred Brooks came to Carolina in 1964
after a nine-year career at IBM, where he
made landmark contributions to computer
architecture, operating systems and software
engineering — contributions that have
stood the test of time and shaped the way
people think about computing.
He coined the term “computer
architecture” and was project manager for
the development of the IBM’s System/360
family of computers and operating
system/360 software.
The building adds 32,000 square feet to
Sitterson’s 70,000 square feet, and includes
several classrooms, with one 21-seat room
designed for First Year Seminars, a graphics
lab for the nation’s top university in this
specialty, and an entire floor dedicated to the
study of computer security.
• What’s next
Venable Hall, home to the chemistry
department since 1925, was demolished
in late 2007 and early 2008 and two new
buildings are under construction in its
place. New Venable and a building yet to
be named will house the chemistry library,
classrooms, lecture halls, conference rooms
and the marine sciences department. •
ABOVE: The $205 million
science complex is the
largest construction project
in the University’s history
Steve Exum
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 23
Carolina’s Women’s Leadership Council
co-chair Mary Anne Dickson, a 1963
political science graduate, has helped to
motivate thousands of women to support
Carolina First.
The Council’s impact on the campaign,
and Dickson’s own leadership and generosity,
will make a difference for the College and
the University for many years to come,
especially for students interested in learning
firsthand about the world.
The Women’s Leadership Council is
a campuswide initiative whose mission is
to create a network of women committed
to supporting the University. Dickson co-chairs
the council with Barbara Hyde ’83
and Julia Sprunt Grumbles ’75.
“We believe in the University, and we
believe in what we’re doing,” Dickson said.
“Women are using their voices and time
and talent, as well as their resources. We
went from an attendance of 30 the first year
to 150 last year at our annual meeting.” At
the same time, the council held outreach
events that drew Carolina alumnae from
around the country.
“This thing has just sort of snowballed,
but we really had to roll up our sleeves to
make it happen,” Dickson added. “After
three years, it really took on a
life of its own. We have had well
over 18,000 women who made
first-time gifts.”
Dickson is also a member
of the Carolina First steering
committee and has chaired
the Board of Visitors. She and
her sister, Neal Johnson ’76,
endowed the Charles Garland
Johnson Sr. Scholars Fund in
International Studies, enabling
students from North Carolina to
study abroad. The fund, named
in honor of their father, provided
scholarships for 15 students
during 2007-2008 alone.
“Honoring our father in this way was
a natural fit,” Dickson said. “Our parents
enjoyed traveling, we both enjoy traveling,
and one of the chancellor’s goals is for every
student, whether he or she can afford it, to
have the opportunity to study and travel
abroad.”
Raymond B. Farrow III, executive
director of the Frank Hawkins Kenan
Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC,
recalls how Dickson helped him raise funds
for study abroad programs and scholarships
when he served as director of development
for international studies in the College from
1998 to 2004.
At the time, international studies
lacked a well-defined constituency since
the major had only recently become
popular among undergraduates.
But Farrow didn’t have to recite
his well-practiced entreaties about
why Carolina had to become more
international. “From the moment we
began talking,” he recalled, “Mary Anne
‘got it.’” Then she said, “Let’s figure out
how to raise some money.”
Dickson began discussing how
she and her sister wanted to establish an
endowment. In addition to her own gift,
Dickson discussed a number of other donor
prospects. Almost all ended up providing
significant support to international studies
by the end of the campaign.
“Mary Anne was, for me, a prime
mover,” said Farrow. “Her gift and visible
support for international studies led to
many others. The trajectory of Carolina
will be forever altered because of the work
she has done.”
After graduating from Carolina,
Dickson moved to Rocky Mount, N.C.,
where she served as the assistant to the
chairman and chief executive officer of
Hardee’s Food Systems. She also holds a
degree in business administration from
North Carolina Wesleyan.
Dickson has received two of UNC’s
highest honors. In 2003, she was given the
William Richardson Davie Award from
the Board of Trustees. In 2006, she was
awarded a Distinguished Service Medal
from the General Alumni Association. Both
of her children, Chase ’89 AB ’95 MPH
and Chris ’92, are Carolina graduates and
actively involved with the University.
Dickson said it’s “really thrilling” to
support Carolina and to motivate other
donors to do the same.
“I feel so rewarded because of the
incredibly wonderful women I’ve met,” she
said. “It has just been very gratifying.” •
ABOVE: Mary Anne Dickson
Carolina First W o m e n ’ s L e a d e r s h i p
Steve Exum
{ } “We believe in the University,
and we believe in what
we’re doing. Women are using
their voices and time and talent,
as well as their resources.
We went from an attendance of
30 the first year to 150 last year
at our annual meeting.”
— Mary Anne Dickson
Mary Anne Dickson ’63 has motivated thousands
to support Carolina First
A Champion for Carolina B y P a m e l a B a b c o c k
Debate
New professor makes that a rhetorical question
ANYONE?
Carolina First
24 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Making a Difference
in Carolina First
• Michael Piller Distinguished
Visiting Professorship
The legacy of Michael Piller ’70
continues through the writing for the
screen and stage program. Piller, best
known for creating stories for “Star Trek,”
died in 2005. This endowment will bring
stage and screen writers, directors and
producers to teach at UNC.
• Kenneth W. Lowe Fund
Ken Lowe ’72, who founded Home
and Garden Television and serves as
president and CEO of the E.W. Scripps
Co., gave $300,000 to establish the fund
to support and retain communication
studies faculty.
• Woody Durham Distinguished
Professorship
More than 120 friends and admirers
of the “Voice of the Tar Heels” have
contributed $666,000 to establish
this distinguished professorship in
communication studies.
P r o g r a m S u p p o r t
Jeffrey Alan Allred has three degrees from
UNC and a million dollars worth of faith in
the power of debate.
Appropriately putting his money
where his mouth is, he established the Jeff
and Jennifer Allred Initiative for Critical
Thinking and Communication Studies,
which brought rhetoric scholar Christian O.
Lundberg to UNC. Lundberg’s appointment
as assistant professor in the department of
communication studies was based on his
natural abilities as an experienced teacher and
coach of debating’s finest skills. The fund also
honors Allred’s friend, mentor and former
debate team member Joseph P. McGuire ’72.
Allred (’76 AB political science ’80
MBA/JD) came to Carolina due largely to
the national stature of its debate program.
He was involved in the debate program
throughout his undergraduate years and
was a member of UNC’s freshman national
championship debate team. “My experiences
on UNC’s intercollegiate debate team served
as the foundation for my success,” said Allred,
who is president and CEO of the Griffeon
Group, a business consulting firm in Atlanta.
“The ability to critically think, articulate and
defend a position is essential no matter what
your life’s calling.”
• Another champion
Christian O. Lundberg received his
Ph.D. in 2006 in rhetoric and public culture
from Northwestern University. He has
coached three university teams to national
championships in intercollegiate debates.
“We didn’t believe the hype about
Chapel Hill,” said Lundberg, “until I joined
the faculty and we moved to Hillsborough,
where my wife, Beth, and I are raising our
daughter, Annabeth. Even the hype doesn’t
do the area justice.”
He explained, “I came to UNC with
a determination to make debate and critical
thinking practices publicly relevant, on
and off campus.” He teaches “Globalization
and Communication,” “Rhetorical Theory”
and “Theories of the Public Sphere,” and
also serves as a resource to faculty on
effective oral communication and critical
thinking skills.
“I created the First Year Seminar
‘Think, Speak, Argue’ as a
vibrant environment for
student-centered learning,”
said Lundberg. Readings
include Plato and Aristotle
as well as educator John
Dewey’s How We Think.
Students develop thinking
and communication skills
by writing persuasive
speeches, role-playing
congressional investigative
committees and
brainstorming public
policy issues.
“The rationale for
the course emulated Jeff Allred’s vision
that a university is most successful when it
not only teaches people competencies in
specific academic areas, but when it also
helps students use those competencies to
positively impact society,” Lundberg said.
• Think your favorite color is blue?
Across the University, students think,
speak and argue about the seminar.
Ting Xu Tan, a biology major, credits
Lundberg with “battering down my fears
of public speaking.”
Julianne Goodpaster, a business major,
said, “Think your favorite color is blue? He
will convince you it’s green. I’m humbled
to have studied under such a remarkable
talent and offer my condolences to anyone
who attempts to debate him.”
Fellow business major David
Blumberg noted, “Debate defines Carolina
as much as any other focus at UNC
— except for Tar Heel basketball. He instills
us with an internal drive for knowledge
that will extend far beyond our years at
school.” •
B y J B S h e l t o n
Top: Christian
Lundberg is
passionate about
debate. Middle: Woody Durham. Bottom: Michael Piller, who created
stories for ‘Star Trek,’ proudly wore his Carolina cap on the set.
Isaac Sandlin
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 25
Making a Mark in Carolina First
• Blanche Britt Armfield Fund
The late poet Blanche Britt Armfield
(MA English ’28) endowed the fund,
enhanced with a gift from her estate, to
champion the cause of poetry at UNC.
• Doris Betts Distinguished
Professorship of Creative Writing
A $1 million endowment was funded
with a gift of $334,000 from Ben Jones ’50
and $332,000 from more than 60 donors.
The gifts were matched with $334,000
from the state Distinguished Professors
Endowment Trust Fund.
• Suzanne Bolch Literary Award
The award sponsors a Carolina
undergraduate’s summer travel-writing
project. Named for Suzanne Bolch ’88, the
award honors the role played by the creative
writing program in her filmmaking career.
• Froelich Family Fund
Henry ’81 and his wife, Molly Dewar
Froelich ’83, memorialized Mazie, his
mother, through a $100,000 expendable
fund. The gift bolsters the salaries of
successful writers who are lecturers in the
program.
• Walker Percy Fund
The Frank Borden Hanes Charitable
Lead Trust honors the distinguished Southern
novelist and 1937 UNC alumnus with an
endowment that supports lecturers.
• Robert Ruark Award
In remembrance of the N.C. novelist,
the award celebrates student nonfiction
writing. Support comes from the Robert
Ruark Society, a charitable remainder trust
created by James T. Cheatham III (’57 ’61 JD).
• Children’s and Young Adult
Literature Award Fund
The late Bill Hooks (’47 MA ’50)
created the fund to support awards for
students who write books for children and
young adults, and to fund travel for students
to attend a children’s writing conference.
Carolina First P r o g r a m S u p p o r t
Thomas Wolfe ’20, UNC’s most celebrated
author, is best known for his novels of
personal exploration, Look Homeward, Angel
and You Can’t Go Home Again. His legacy
thrives through the words and works of
talented new writers and devoted alumni
of the creative writing program in UNC’s
department of English and comparative
literature.
In 2001, Frank Borden Hanes Sr. ’42
of Winston-Salem, N.C., an accomplished
journalist, poet and novelist, contributed
$2 million to establish the Thomas Wolfe
Scholarship.
The scholarship offers full, four-year
financial support for up to two incoming
students per year, selected for exceptionally
focused literary ability and promise. Since
fall 2002, the scholarship’s board of advisers
has named seven Wolfe Scholars.
“Our program had a high profile
thanks to the talented writers and teachers
who have come through here, but when
Mr. Hanes gave us the scholarship he
put a huge gold star on creative writing,”
said program director Bland Simpson, a
Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished
Professor. “There really aren’t any other
programs quite like this. It certainly elevated
our national profile and stature.”
• Thomas Wolfe Scholars
The Thomas Wolfe Scholars minor in
creative writing and are instilled with Wolfe’s
spirit, honing their talents in
the place fondly called the
“Southern Part of Heaven.”
Andrew Chan, an
’08 English and
comparative
literature major from
Charlotte, N.C., is
the third recipient of
a Wolfe Scholarship.
“The
scholarship has had
a major impact on
my life,” said Chan,
who has applied to cinema studies graduate
programs and hopes to become a film critic.
“For the first time, I felt affirmed in
my desire to make writing a priority in
my life. Throughout my four years, I have
felt supported by the faculty and my peers,”
Chan added. “I am so grateful for this
scholarship, which has made my growth
and commitment as a writer possible.”
In addition to Chan, the scholars are
Caitlin Doyle ’06 of East Hampton, N.Y.;
Hannah Poston ’07 of Newtown, Pa.;
Kendra Fish ’09 of Castle Rock, Colo.;
Nathaniel Lumpkin ’10 of Raleigh, N.C.;
Maria Devlin ’11 of Bronxville, N.Y.; and
Denise Rickman ’11 of Apex, N.C.
• Unwavering support and faith
“The unwavering support we receive
from the friends of the University is a
marvel,” Simpson said. “Their generosity
makes possible the depth of our curricular
and extracurricular activities.”
In 2007-08, nearly 700 Carolina
undergraduates will choose from the
creative writing program’s 40-plus courses
of prose and poetry. Simpson, who began
teaching at UNC in 1982, said, “The
program has always been good, but it
has become stronger and more vibrant
because of the succession of gifts we have
received.” •
Above: Thomas Wolfe Scholars Kendra Fish ’09,
Andrew Chan ’08 and Caitlin Doyle ’06 with poet
Fred Chappell, wearing the Thomas Wolfe Medal.
Right: Bland Simpson.
TheWRITE choice B y J B S h e l t o n
Honoring the legacy of Thomas Wolfe, other writers
26 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First
Two business leaders and Carolina alumni
agree on at least one thing — that the study
and practice of ethics is crucial for better
business and a better world. That’s why Gary
W. Parr ’79 and John Allison IV ’71 have
directed substantial gifts to the department
of philosophy that have had a significant
impact on classroom teaching, research and
outreach involving ethics.
When Parr pursued his business major
at UNC, ethics courses were not offered as
part of the undergraduate business program.
“Teaching ethics as a part of business
seemed to me to be fundamental,” said
Parr, deputy chairman of Lazard, a global
financial advisory firm in New York City.
“I’m a big believer that people of all ages
should be taught frameworks for dealing
with [tough] issues.”
In 2004, the Gary W. Parr Family
Foundation established the Parr Center
for Ethics in the department of philosophy
with gifts totaling $2.156 million. The
center is devoted to the study, teaching and
discussion of ethics across the University
and in the community.
“The Parr Center stands as the public
face of the University’s commitment to
ethics. In the process, it works well to
support research and teaching devoted
to ethics, at both the undergraduate and
graduate levels,” said department chair Geoff
Sayre-McCord.
The center complements ethics
courses and projects already offered
at Carolina. “There is now a place for
coordinating efforts and creating synergy,”
he added.
Events at the center have explored
a variety of issues: sports, corporate law,
capital punishment and other topics. Some
offerings reach beyond Carolina, like the
ethics bowl, an undergraduate competition
hosted at UNC in November. The center
also organized workshops on ethics and
disability that included events in Chapel
Hill and England.
In addition to
seminars, work-shops
and lectures,
the Parr Founda-tion
gift supports
research and a
visiting faculty
member each year
who teaches un-dergraduates
and
participates in Parr
Center events.
• Culture based
on values
Allison, who
earned a UNC business degree, is now
chairman and chief executive officer
of BB&T. The corporation’s banking
culture is built around 10 primary values
that are consistent, integrated and put
into practice. The focus on values grows
from the belief that ideas matter and
that an individual’s character is of crucial
significance.
“As a large business, subject to
all types of regulations and constantly
striving to meet the needs of our
customers, BB&T has a significant
interest in exploring and understanding
the moral foundations of a free society
and free markets. Because of its focus
on ethics and rationality, the philosophy
department at UNC is an excellent place
to achieve this end,” said Allison, who has
lectured on leadership and values at the
Parr Center.
The BB&T Charitable Foundation’s
two $1 million gifts, made in 2002 and
2007, have supported research and a
visiting faculty member every year.
These gifts have established what
Sayre-McCord calls “a fund for excel-lence.”
“Thanks to the BB&T gifts,
we’re in a position to support valuable
research, innovative teaching and a more
challenging intellectual environment.
Faculty are able to go to conferences that
we couldn’t have afforded otherwise. We
bring in exciting speakers who are doing
cutting-edge work,” he said. “We���ve been
able to enhance dramatically our research,
the quality of our graduate program and
the excitement in our department.”
BB&T also has helped support
the establishment of a minor in
philosophy, politics and economics, and
a visiting faculty member who teaches
undergraduate courses and does research
with a focus on human nature, Aristotle,
theories of justice and political economy.
“Thanks to the support from the
Parr Family Foundation, from BB&T
and from a number of other generous
donors, UNC’s philosophy department is
thriving,” Sayre-McCord said. •
— The Fiske Guide to Colleges has
repeatedly named philosophy among Carolina’s
strongest undergraduate programs, and The
Philosophical Gourmet Report, a national
survey, ranks philosophy in the top 10 in the
country. Faculty Scholarly Productivity
Index, a private survey based on faculty
publications and citations, said UNC has
the most productive philosophy department
in the nation.
From left: Gary Parr ’79 and John Allison ’71 have directed gifts to
philosophy to enhance teaching, research and outreach involving ethics.
P r o g r a m S u p p o r t
Focus on
Gifts enhance teaching, research and outreach
Ethics B y J e s s C l a r k e
Carolina First P r o g r a m S u p p o r t
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 27
The Carolina Center for Jewish Studies
— which has helped spark a groundswell
of interest in Jewish history and culture,
from biblical times to the present, across the
Carolina campus — continues its quest to
put the program on the map nationally and
internationally.
The Jewish studies center was founded
in 2003, and today more than 1,000 students
study Jewish history and culture in the
College. The program continues to receive
substantial gifts to bolster faculty, while a
lecture series and statewide outreach
program attract growing numbers.
“We’ve secured funding for four
new endowed faculty positions in Jewish
studies, and we’re hoping soon to be able
to create a Jewish studies program second
to none in the country,” said director Jonathan
M. Hess, the Moses M. and Hannah L.
Malkin Distinguished Term Professor in
Jewish History and Culture.
• Leading scholar joins the program
In fall 2007, Jonathan Boyarin was
named the Leonard and Tobee Kaplan
Distinguished Professor of Modern
Jewish Thought. Boyarin joined UNC
from the University of Kansas.
“He’s one of the world’s leading
scholars on Jewish culture,” Hess observed.
“I’m encouraged to come to a place
where the development of Jewish studies
was already well in progress,” Boyarin said.
“That means developing discourse and
competence in various areas of Jewish
culture, history, politics and tradition —
all of which help show the way that the
study of Jewishness is a vital connecting
thread through the humanities, arts and
social sciences.”
This spring, Boyarin is teaching
“Hasidism and Modern Orthodoxy” and
“Secularism and Political Theology.”
Boyarin’s hire was made possible by a
$1 million gift in 2006 from Greensboro
resident Leonard Kaplan, a 1949 Carolina
alumnus, and his wife, Tobee. Additional
funding from the N.C. Distinguished
Professors Endowment Trust brought the
Kaplan endowment to $1,334,000.
• Pivotal gift to attract ‘rising star’
The center recognizes it’s also critical
to attract new faculty who can build their
careers at UNC.
In September 2007, the center received
a $1 million gift to hire a young scholar
in modern Hebrew literature and Israeli
culture. The center is applying for a state
matching grant of $500,000 to bring the
endowment to $1.5 million. The center is
currently recruiting for the Levine-Sklut
Fellow in Jewish Studies, and hopes to have
someone on board in fall 2008.
“Modern Hebrew is a linchpin of any
Jewish studies program,” Hess said. “This
position will enable us to bring in someone
who will teach courses that our students
could have only dreamed of in the past.”
The gift came from two generations
of a Charlotte, N.C., family and their family
foundations: Lori and Eric Sklut, and Lori’s
parents, Leon and Sandra Levine. Eric Sklut
is a 1980 Carolina alumnus and member
of the center’s advisory board.
Eli N. Evans ’58, chair of the Jewish
studies advisory board said, “The credibility
conferred by this gift will surely inspire
others to join the mission of making a
first-rate Jewish studies program available
to every student at the University and
every community across the state.”
• Rich history, promising future
Jewish studies classes were first taught
at Carolina in the 1940s. Today, the
program draws on the expertise of faculty
from American studies, religious studies,
history, English, Germanic languages and
literature, Slavic languages and literatures,
and Asian studies.
It offers about 30 courses and also
undergraduate minors in Jewish studies and
modern Hebrew. During Carolina First,
three other distinguished professorships
were created:
• The late Moses Malkin and his
wife, Hannah, 1941 UNC graduates from
Sun City, Fla., established the distinguished
professorship awarded to Hess.
• The JMA and Sonja van der Horst
Distinguished Professorship in Jewish Studies
was established by the family of Johannes
“Hans” and his wife, Holocaust survivor
Sonja. Two of the children, Charles van der
Horst, a professor of medicine at UNC,
and Jacqueline van der Horst Sergent ’82
MPH, have UNC connections.
• The Sara and E.J. Evans Distinguished
Professorship was funded by the Arie and
Ida Crown Memorial of Chicago. •
ABOVE: Jonathan Boyarin, the new Kaplan
Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish Thought.
RIGHT: Lori and Eric Sklut and Lori’s parents,
Leon and Sandra Levine, gave a $1 million gift to
hire a ‘rising star’ in Jewish studies.
B y P a m e l a B a b c o c k
for Jewish Studies
Key gifts bolster faculty, programs
Momentum
Gifts increase professorships, in

T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f N o r t h C a r o l i n a a t C h a p e l H i l l
The Kenan Legacy
World-class faculty, students and facilities
CELEBRATING CAROLINA FIRST:
• Distinguished Professors and Fellows
• Global Giving and Learning
• New Programs and Scholarships
• Dedicated Donors
S p r i n g • 2 0 0 8
a r t s&s c i e n c e s C a r o l i n a
I n s i d e : C l i m a t e C h a n g e • S a m E r v i n & T e r r y S a n f o r d • P l a y M a k e r s ’ N e w D a y
The College of Arts & Sciences
• Holden Thorp ’86
Dean
• William Andrews ’70 MA ’73 PhD
Senior Associate Dean, Fine Arts and Humanities
• Bruce Carney
Senior Associate Dean, Sciences
• Karen Gil
Senior Associate Dean, Social Sciences
• Tammy McHale
Senior Associate Dean, Finance and Planning
• James W. May
Senior Associate Dean, Program Development;
Executive Director, Arts & Sciences Foundation
• Bobbi Owen
Senior Associate Dean, Undergraduate Education
• Arne Kalleberg
Director, International Programs
Arts & Sciences Foundation
Board of Directors
• Ivan V. Anderson, Jr. ’61, Charleston, SC, Chair
• H. Holden Thorp ’86, Chapel Hill, NC, President
• William L. Andrews, ‘70 MA ‘73 PhD,
Chapel Hill, NC, Vice President
• Tammy J. McHale, Chapel Hill, NC, Treasurer
• James W. May, Jr., Chapel Hill, NC, Secretary
• James L. Alexandre ’79, London, UK
• D. Shoffner Allison ’98, Charlotte, NC
• William S. Brenizer ’74, Glen Head, NY
• Cathy Bryson ’90, Santa Monica, CA
• Jeffrey Forbes Buckalew ’88 ’93 MBA,
New York, NY
• G. Munroe Cobey ’74, Chapel Hill, NC
• Sheila Ann Corcoran ’92 ’98 MBA,
Los Angeles, CA
• Vicki Underwood Craver ’92, Cos Cob, CT
• Steven M. Cumbie ’70 ’73 MBA, McLean, VA
• Archie H. Davis ’64, Savannah, GA
• Jaroslav T. Folda, III, Chapel Hill, NC
• Mary Dewar Froelich ’83, Charlotte, NC
• Gardiner W. Garrard, Jr. ’64, Columbus, GA
• Emmett Boney Haywood ’77 ’82 JD,
Raleigh, NC
• William T. Hobbs, II ’85, Charlotte, NC
• Lynn Buchheit Janney ’70, Butler, MD
• Matthew G. Kupec ’80, Chapel Hill, NC
• William M. Lamont, Jr. ’71, Dallas, TX
• Paula R. Newsome ’77, Charlotte, NC
• John A. Powell ‘77, San Francisco, CA
• Benjamine Reid ’71, Miami, FL
• H. Martin Sprock III ‘87, Charlotte, NC
• Emily Pleasants Sternberg ’88 ’94 MBA,
Greenwich, CT
• Thomas M. Uhlman ’71 MS ’75 PhD,
Murray Hill, NJ
• Eric P. Vick ’90, Oxford, UK
• Charles L. Wickham, III ’82 BSBA,
London, UK
• Loyal W. Wilson ’70, Chagrin Falls, OH
In Memoriam Carolina Loses
a Special Person
Eve Carson, 1985-2008
By Holden Thorp,
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences
Carolina lost a special person on March 5
— Eve Marie Carson, 22, a senior political
science and biology major in the College of Arts
and Sciences.
Carson, the victim of an off-campus
shooting, was elected UNC’s student body
president in February 2007. Her term would
have ended in April.
A native of Athens, Ga., Carson was born
on Nov. 19, 1985. She came to Carolina in the fall of 2004 as the recipient of a prestigious
Morehead-Cain Scholarship. She was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society and
served on the UNC Board of Trustees.
My relationship with Eve began in March 2004 when I and three colleagues
interviewed her for the Morehead Scholarship. Eve’s written application seemed to me
almost too good to be true. She was interested in neuroscience and, in particular, in
the sociobiology hypothesis initially posited by Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson, a hero
we both shared. My skepticism about her intellectual prowess was quickly eliminated,
however, because when I began questioning her about the roles of genes in behavior, I
found she was an expert. But she also talked about the world with a combined scholarly
sophistication and wide-eyed idealism, a special brand of optimism that came to inspire all
of the UNC community.
On top of all that, Eve starred in soccer, so she was our top candidate. A few days
later after she got the good news about the Morehead, I wrote her a short e-mail of
congratulations and told her I’d be happy to answer any questions she had about Carolina.
Her e-mail response of four years ago shows how well she had already figured out what
the College was all about:
“When I began my college process,” she said, “I was sure that the small,
private college was for me. As I went on, however, I realized that I do want the entire
college experience — the academics, the town, the opportunity for study abroad and
undergraduate research, an enthusiastic student body and involved teachers — and that is
what UNC offers.”
Always inquisitive, she added, “I will be sure to get in touch with you if I have any
questions about UNC (or if I have questions about socio/neurobiology — if that is alright
with you.)” A year or so later, when I was director of the Morehead Planetarium and
Science Center, I invited E. O. Wilson to come to campus to give a talk. Eve was there, of
course, and I got to introduce her to our hero.
Last year, Eve was elected student body president at just the same time that I
accepted my job as dean. Like everyone, I thoroughly enjoyed working with her. We
shared the podium many times in the last year, and we loved sharing our passion for
Carolina with the audience. I never could quite match Eve. She always talked about the
“Carolina Way,” which she described as “excellence with a heart.”
That heart is heavy with the tragedy of Eve’s death and the loss of one of Carolina’s
greatest friends.
Eve Carson
Table of Contents c a r o l i n a F i r s t
c a m p a i g n
Special Section
A celebration of the transformational
impact of private giving on students,
faculty, programs and facilities in the
College of Arts and Sciences
M o r e St o r i e s
23 Profile
Mary Anne Dickson ’63
She has motivated thousands to give
to Carolina and the College
24 powerful Programs
Gifts enhance communication studies,
Jewish studies, creative writing,
philosophy and honors
30 Star Students
New scholarships, undergraduate
research support and graduate
fellowships
33 Celebrating
Entrepreneurship
34 Profile
Margaret Harper
Supporting the College since 1975
35 College First
A historical snapshot, plus the
campaign by the numbers
36 Sixty-Six new
Distinguished
Professorships
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 1
F e a t u r e s
4 • The Kenan Legacy
The Carolina blue sky’s the limit
for faculty and students who are
reaping the educational benefits
of Carolina First gifts from the
Kenan family
7 • Faculty Support
Distinguished professors Bill
Ferris, Peter Sherwood, Mike
Ramsey, Pam Durban and Dinesh
Manocha, plus news on fellowships
and research support that help
us recruit and keep the best
teachers and scholars
16 • Global Giving
Opens New Doors
Support for students, programs
and faculty here and abroad, and
a new international hub on campus
20 • Building Science
Cutting-edge facilities attract
outstanding faculty and students and
help them tackle the world’s problems
Cover photo: Kenan Giving: The Kenan Trust has given generously to students, faculty,
new buildings and programs in the College. Pictured, from left (front row): Kenan trustee Tom
Kenan, chemist Nancy Allbritton, Kenan Trust executive director Richard Krasno, Institute for the
Arts and Humanities faculty fellow and professor Pat Parker. (Back row): Kenan Music Scholars
Daniel Hammond and Lauren Schultes, Kenan Eminent Professor James Rives and Kenan Music
Scholar Jessica Kunttu. (Photo by Steve Exum)
7
4
16
Steve Exum Steve Exum
Table of Contents 2 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences T a b l e o f
C o n t e n t s
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008
D e p a r t m e n t s
37 Profile
Mysteries of the Olmec:
PhD alum explores first New World
civilization.
38 High Achievers
Transcendental honor, Davie Award
winners, Louise Fletcher receives
PlayMaker Award, WOWS Scholars
support women in science, lifetime
achievement in geography, 4 win state’s
highest civilian honor, Pukkila advances
science education, 2 faculty win
Fulbrights, and more
51 Highlights
New use for old bridges and dams,
Entwisle directs National Children’s
Study Center, understanding addiction,
bye-bye Venable, high-tech football
helmets reveal info about head injuries,
marine scientists teach under water,
Ted Turner talks, and more
55 College Bookshelf
New books from Russell Banks,
Robert Morgan, Philip Gura,
Daphne Athas and other College
faculty and alumni.
F e a t u r e s
42 • The Heat is On
Exploring the relationship between
climate change and drought
48 • A New Day
Joe Haj ’88 is writing a fresh script
for PlayMakers
50 • ‘Artistic Home’
Ray Dooley has been calling
PlayMakers home for 19 years
55 • Historic Showdown
Terry Sanford and Sam Ervin
square off in an excerpt from
this new Ervin biography
48
42
Steve Exum
55
Richard Miller/Courtesy of NASA
CarolinaFirstCarolinaFirst
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CarolinaFirstCarolinaFirst
FirstCarolinaFirstCarolinCarolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 3 a
F r o m t h e D e a n
Holden Thorp
Steve Exum
Celebrating Carolina First
Transformative.
We’ve been using that word a lot lately to describe
the extraordinary impact of private giving to the College of
Arts and Sciences during Carolina First. The numbers are
astounding: Nearly 35,000 alumni and friends gave more
than $387 million to the College (soaring past our goal
of $350 million) during the fundraising campaign, which
began July 1, 1999, and ended Dec. 31, 2007.
In my time working on the Carolina First campaign
as dean and chair of chemistry, one thing shines through:
People love Carolina. My fondest thoughts of the campaign
are the looks on the faces of our alumni when they come
into my office to see the Old Well outside the window and the appreciative welcome that I
always get when meeting Carolina folks in far-off locations. The donors make so many things
possible for us because they so value and cherish their experience in the College. It has been
a great privilege to work with all of you on this campaign. Thank you.
And now for some of the details:
Carolina First raised $2.38 billion for the University, going down in the record books as
the fifth-largest completed campaign in U.S. higher education.
We’ve come a long way in the College since our first official capital campaign in 1984-
1986, when our goal was $5 million and we raised $22.2 million. The momentum has
continued to grow from there, and we’re getting a great return on our donors’ investment
in the College. Their gifts will enhance the Carolina experience for future generations of
students, and the financial return on the investment of our growing endowment has been
phenomenal.
We have a lot of reasons to celebrate, and we do just that in this issue of Carolina Arts
& Sciences. I am excited to share with you a special campaign section focused on how
private gifts are transforming faculty, students, programs and facilities in the College. Early
in the campaign, we started off with a bang. A $24 million gift from New York investment
manager Julian H. Robertson Jr. ’55 and his wife, Josie, divided equally between Duke and
UNC, created a pioneering collaborative scholarship program that has recruited exceptional
undergraduate students who study at both campuses.
Gifts of all sizes are making a difference. In these pages, you’ll read about the Kenan
family, which has given more to the College during the recent Carolina First campaign than
any other private donor. The various Kenan philanthropies gave the University nearly $70
million during Carolina First — and more than half of that total has been designated for the
College. We also profile Margaret Taylor Harper, who made the first annual gift of $1,000 to
the College in 1975 — and has continued to give to the Annual Fund every year.
During Carolina First, donors created 66 endowed professorships in the College and
enhanced an existing fund, the Bowman and Gordon Gray Professorships. You’ll read about
how private gifts have helped us to recruit and retain faculty, one of our key priorities. You’ll
see how scholarships are making a difference for students, how Carolina is becoming more
global, how academic programs are enhancing their offerings, and how new buildings are
attracting faculty stars to campus.
The rest of the magazine includes our regular feature section, this time showcasing the
work of College scholars who are exploring the relationship between climate change and
drought. You’ll read about Joe Haj ’88, who is transforming PlayMakers Repertory Company.
We feature an excerpt of a showdown between Senator Sam Ervin ’17 and Terry Sanford ’39
JD ’46, from a new Ervin biography by Karl Campbell PhD ’95.
The purpose of the College of Arts and Sciences, as I see it, is to promote original
thought and produce the people and ideas needed to solve the world’s biggest problems.
The $387 million raised during Carolina First energizes every aspect of our academic mission.
Let’s celebrate!
Holden Thorp, Dean
The College Index
• Amount raised for the College of Arts
and Sciences during Carolina First:
$387 million
• Percentage used to support students
through scholarships, study abroad funds,
undergraduate research and awards: 18.6
• Percentage directed to faculty support: 39.9
• Number of new endowed professorships: 66
• Number of donors to the College: 34,507
• Earliest class year of a donor to Carolina First:
1926. Dr. Guy Adams Cardwell (died in 2005)
• Classes with the most donors to the College:
1971 (729); 1990 (704); 1989 (689)
• Oldest living donor: Maxine Swalin,
born in 1903
• Number of donors from Class of 2009:
21, most born in 1987
• Number of College alumni who have
made gifts: 27,866
• As a percentage of all College donors: 81
• Percentage of all donors to the College
from North Carolina: 53
• After N.C., top states in donors to the College
in descending order: Virginia, Georgia,
New York, California, Florida
• Number of donors making gifts of $100,000
to $499,999: 270
• Number of donors making gifts of $500,000
to $999,999: 64
• Number of donors making gifts of $1 million
or more: 95
• Number of new endowment and expendable
funds created in Bicentennial Campaign
(1990-1995): 337
• Number of new endowment and expendable
funds created in Carolina First (1999-2007): 735
• After U.S., top countries in donors to the
College in descending order: England, Canada,
France, Germany, Japan
• Largest single gift: $14,204,700
• Amount of largest cumulative gifts from
one donor: $21,510,000
KT hee 4 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
As long as there’s been a Carolina,
there have been Kenans to support its
mission, and the College of Arts and Sciences
has been one of the major beneficiaries. The
family and its two charitable trusts have given
more to the College over history and during
the recent $2.38 billion Carolina First capital
campaign than any other private donor. The
family’s generosity supports faculty, students,
facilities and programs across the arts and
sciences, including the following Carolina First
gifts to the College from the William R. Kenan
Jr. Charitable Trust:
• $8 million to provide full scholarships
for four incoming music students every year
and to complete the Kenan Music Building;
• Five $3 million professorships of the
$27 million given to the University to endow
10 faculty chairs. There are currently four
Kenan Eminent Professors in the College,
and a search is under way for a fifth;
• $3 million for the Carolina Physical
Science Complex for state-of-the-art
classrooms and laboratories;
• $500,000 to the Institute for the
Arts and Humanities, which is dedicated to
the “recruitment, retention and refreshment”
of faculty; and
• $250,000 to PlayMakers Repertory
Company in the department of dramatic art.
Gifts from the Kenan family have
benefited Carolina faculty since 1917
when Mary Lily Kenan Flagler left a bequest
establishing the Kenan Foundation for
Distinguished Professors. William R. Kenan
Jr. (class of 1894) died in 1965 and left
$95 million for philanthropy in the service
of education, singling out his alma mater
for special attention. The trust was formed
that year and immediately began providing
support for endowed professorships.
• In 1965, the trust committed
$5 million to endow 25 W.R. Kenan Jr.
Distinguished Professors at UNC. Today 11 of
these are in the College of Arts and Sciences.
• In 1995, Kenan funds endowed
four Kenan Distinguished Professors of
only school specifically mentioned in the
guidelines for the trust.
Kenan majored in chemistry and as an
undergraduate collaborated with chemistry
professor Francis Preston Venable and
alumnus John Motley Morehead on the
groundbreaking discovery of acetylene gas. In
his memoirs, Kenan — the chemist, engineer,
industrialist and executive — wrote fondly
of his alma mater and noted, “Education is a
dynamic thing. Education should concern itself
with the whole personality.” His will codified
this conviction: “I have always believed firmly
that a good education is the most cherished
gift an individual can receive, and it is my
sincere hope that the provisions of the Article
will result in a substantial benefit to mankind.”
Undergraduate Teaching Excellence in the
College.
• In 1998, the trust established the
W.R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professorship
in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at
UNC and N.C. State, a post currently held
by chemist Joe DeSimone.
“Higher education, and particularly
the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, has always been a priority for the Kenan
Trust,” said Thomas S. Kenan, III, a trustee
of the family foundation, who graduated
from Carolina in 1959 with a degree in
economics.
“We’ve never wanted anything less
than to help transform the University …
contributing to the Carolina First Campaign
was another step toward that goal.”
A special partnership
It all began in 1790, when North
Carolina legislator James Kenan, a member
of UNC’s first Board of Trustees, contributed
$50 to the construction of Old East, the first
state university building in the nation. Over
the next two centuries, dozens of family
members would serve as trustees, make their
way to Chapel Hill as students or function
as benefactors. Taken in sum, this has
created what Chancellor James Moeser has
happily characterized as “one of the oldest
philanthropic partnerships in American
higher education.”
There’s virtue in longevity. Members
of various Kenan branches continue to give
to the University, either as individuals or
through foundations and trusts. The gifts
range from targeted to all-purpose, with
funds going to professorships and libraries,
athletic scholarships and the arts. But the
charitable benchmark of the family was
established when William Rand Kenan
Jr. died and left the bulk of his estate for
the trust bearing his name. From that has
been shaped a national philanthropic
institution focused widely and deeply on
higher education, but favoring UNC, the
Carolina First K e n a n L e g a c y
Kenan Carolina First K e n a n L e g a c y
One family’s largesse has transformed
the College over time
S t o r i e s B y L i s a H . T owl e
LEFT TO RIGHT: Kenan Eminent Professor James Rives, Kenan Music Scholar Daniel Hammond, Kenan trustee Tom Kenan, Kenan Music Scholar Lauren
Schultes, Kenan Trust executive director Richard Krasno, Institute for the Arts and Humanities fellow and communication studies professor Pat Parker,
chemist Nancy Allbritton and Kenan Music Scholar Jessica Kunttu. Steve Exum
Legacy
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 5
Today, the William R. Kenan Jr.
Charitable Trust is valued at $550 million
to $600 million, and the assets of the four
affiliated William R. Kenan Jr. funds total $140
million to $150 million. About 90 percent of
their grants each year fund education both
inside and outside the classroom. Thus, said
Richard M. Krasno, executive director of
the Kenan Trust and president of the funds,
“This is a unique institution among academic
foundations. We have really stuck to our
knitting. We’re committed to the enduring
rather than the trendy and provocative.”
That explains, then, the philanthropy’s
willingness to be the momentum-makers in
the Carolina First Campaign. Upon hearing
about the start of the campaign in 2000,
Krasno paid a visit to the chancellor in order
to learn more about its goals and priorities.
He took the information back to the trustees,
Thomas Kenan and Mary Lily Flagler Wiley,
a grandniece of William R. Kenan Jr. They
concurred it was critical to support Carolina’s
vision of becoming the nation’s leading public
university.
The various Kenan family philanthropies
gave the University nearly $70 million during
Carolina First. More than half of that total has
been designated for the College of Arts and
Sciences, comprising nearly 10 percent of
private support raised for the College in the
campaign.
“In recognition of the importance of the
Carolina First Campaign to the University,
the trust wanted to give gifts that built on the
precedent set by generations of members of the
Kenan family,” said Krasno, former president of
the Monterey Institute of International Studies
in Monterey, Calif., as well as former president
and CEO of the Institute of International
Education in New York.
“The thing about Kenan giving is this:
It reflects an extraordinarily sophisticated
understanding of higher education, from the
aspect of students, teaching and budgets,” said
Holden Thorp ’86, dean of the College and the
Kenan Professor of Chemistry. “For one public
university to have such a benefactor at this
level is unusual. If someone asked what makes
UNC stand out, especially among Southern
universities, this kind of philanthropy is it.” •
6 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First K e n a n L e g a c y
Harmonic
Progression
When asked what an
$8 million gift from the Kenan
Trust means to the department
of music, Tim Carter, chair and
David G. Frey Distinguished
Professor of Music, takes a
moment to search for just the
right adjective. Then comes,
“Transformational. It’s been
remarkable in every possible
way.”
Richard Krasno, executive director of
the trust, says that was precisely the idea.
“The trustees believe the grant will thrust the
department into the top five programs of its
kind nationally,” he said.
The gift, the largest private gift to an
academic department in the College of
Arts and Sciences as part of Carolina First,
included $4 million to create an endowment
for full four-year merit scholarships in music to
be awarded annually to four undergraduates.
While the trust has long supported faculty and
facilities at Carolina, the scholarships represent
its most generous gift directed to students.
The Kenan Music Scholarships cover
in-state tuition, student fees, room and
board, and provide a $6,000 allowance
for study abroad, work with a particular
performer, internships with elite music groups,
attendance at music festivals and other music
events, and travel to audition for graduate
school programs.
The other half of the Kenan gift —
$4 million — went to complete funding
for a new building now under construction
on Columbia Street.
The Kenan Music Building is slated
for completion in 2008 and will include a
large instrumental rehearsal hall, 18 faculty
studios for applied teaching, 100- and 45-
seat classrooms, three piano studios, three
ensemble rehearsal rooms, three practice
rooms, a world music room, a digital
theory laboratory, a recording studio and a
percussion suite.
Carter’s description of the gift as
“transformational” resonates
with first-year student Lauren
Schultes, a vocalist from
Grosse Pointe, Mich. Last fall,
she joined three classmates
from North Carolina —
Cynthia Burton of Banner Elk
(violinist), Daniel Hammond
of Raleigh (French horn player)
and Jessica Kunttu of Cary
(bassoonist) — as the inaugural
class of Kenan Music Scholars,
a quartet selected from almost
200 students who auditioned.
“I can’t describe the opportunity to study
at UNC as anything less than a blessing. I
couldn’t have afforded to come here as an
out-of-state student, and I wanted a broader
education than conservatories offer,” said
Schultes.
An operatic soprano who’s been
recognized for achievements in French,
dance and distributive education as well as
music, Schultes has already experienced
mountaintop moments as a result of her
scholarship. For instance, she and her voice
professor, Terry Rhodes, traveled to the
Kennedy Center to see Placido Domingo
perform in “La Boheme.” Afterward, they
met with the internationally renowned tenor.
Schultes said she’ll never forget when he said
to her: “I hope to hear you sing someday.” •
Eminent Impact
• Fact 1: In 1917, Mary Lily Kenan
Flagler left UNC the largest bequest ever
made to a state institution at the time. Her
will established the Kenan Foundation for
Distinguished Professors.
• Fact 2: In the mid-1960s, endowing
professorships was the first order of business
for the new William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable
Trust. Trustees aimed to augment the quality
of undergraduate teaching and scholarship
at U.S. colleges and universities, and they
started with UNC.
• Fact 3: A third of Carolina’s faculty,
like their counterparts nationwide, are nearing
retirement age, placing the University in
intense competition for world-class scholars.
• Fact 4: Carolina���s most well-known
faculty are often targeted for recruitment by
other leading institutions who have bigger
endowments.
So it was that legacy and need met in the
establishment of Kenan Eminent Professorships
during Carolina First. A $27 million lead
gift to the University from the Kenan Trust,
the William R. Kenan Jr. Fund and the
Kenan family resulted in the $3 million
professorships. Ultimately numbering 10,
they will be the most generously endowed
professorships in University history. Richard
Krasno, executive director of the trust,
described the professorships as “part of a
proactive recruitment and retention strategy.”
The College of Arts and Sciences is
already benefiting from that vision. In the
summer of 2006, James Rives, a renowned
classics scholar, arrived in Chapel Hill from
York University. He joined two other Kenan
Eminents in the College: Minrose Gwin,
an expert on Southern literature, and Jeff
Spinner-Halev, a scholar of political ethics.
A fourth Kenan Eminent, Patricia McAnany,
was appointed in July 2007 in anthropology,
and a search is under way for a fifth.
“UNC has an excellent classics
department, but I was happy in Canada,”
said Rives. “Uprooting myself from a
tenured position and moving was a daunting
prospect. If not for the plum of being a Kenan
Eminent Professor, and the affirmation it
brought, I wouldn’t have done it.”
Rives’ main area of scholarly interest
is religion in the Roman imperial period,
though he teaches courses in a range of
areas, including Greek myth, Roman law
and Latin historical prose. “I anticipate my
stay in Chapel Hill will be a long one,” he
said. “I can’t imagine an offer that would
tempt me away.” •
ABOVE: The first class of Kenan Music Scholars, from left:
Jessica Kunttu, Cynthia Burton, Daniel Hammond and Lauren Schultes.
Joey Seawell/Steve Exum Photography
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 7
Bill Ferris tried three times to get a grant to support
The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.
“Many scholars didn’t think the South had enough serious
information to deserve an encyclopedia,” said Ferris, who co-edited
the book with Charles Wilson. Originally published in 1989,
the tome has won numerous awards and a Pulitzer nomination,
sold well over 60,000 copies and is now being republished in
24 separate volumes divided by topic.
Ferris, the Joel R. Williamson
Eminent Professor of History
and senior associate director of
UNC’s Center for the Study of
the American South, is an astute
chronicler of all things Southern,
from Delta blues to moon pies,
Hank Aaron to zydeco music. He
grew up on a farm in Mississippi and
says he never quite left, though more
accurately, when he left he took the
South with him. He attended prep
school in the Northeast, did graduate
study in Chicago, Pennsylvania and
Ireland, held teaching positions at
Jackson State, Yale and home again at
Ole Miss., and served as chair of the
National Endowment for the Humanities
in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 2001.
“The South is a world that has
always stayed in my heart and has inspired
me to do the work that I do as a teacher
and scholar,” Ferris said.
The title of Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History
was conferred on Ferris when he accepted the UNC appointment
in 2002. A gift from John A. Powell ’77 and Paula J. Robichaud
funded the endowed professorship established in 2000 to honor
Williamson, a member of the history faculty from 1960 to 2003,
and to provide substantial financial support to help the College
recruit and retain outstanding faculty. To honor Carolina’s
renowned teachers and scholars in Southern studies, Powell and
Robichaud also created the John Shelton Reed Distinguished
Professorship, held by Larry Griffin; and in 2007, Powell
established the George B. Tindall Distinguished Professorship.
Williamson has written a number of award-winning books on
the American South. Williamson and Ferris are “old, old friends,”
Ferris said. The endowed professorship, he said, “makes me feel
like I really came to the right place.”
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
The prodigious Encyclopedia is only a part of Ferris’ body of work.
He has written or edited 10 books so far and created 15 documentary
films, mostly about Southern music and folklore. Among his many
honors, Ferris has received a Lifetime Achievement Award at an
international film festival in Prague, a Richard Wright Literary
Excellence Award from the Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration,
the Charles Frankel Prize in the Humanities from former President Bill
Clinton and the American Library Association’s
Dartmouth Medal. Ferris was the founding
director of the Center for the Study of Southern
Culture at the University of Mississippi, where
he was on the faculty for 18 years.
Tom Rankin, director of the Center for
Documentary Studies at Duke University,
has worked with Ferris on a number of
projects and admires Ferris’ ability to make
connections among people from disparate
disciplines and create work that has a
resonance beyond the University.
“He would walk the halls of Congress
and find ways to get Jesse Helms interested
in the National Endowment for the
Humanities, a tall order when he arrived
in Washington,”
Rankin said. “While
always keenly
aware of significant
differences, he looks
for what we share,
not at the things that
divide us — and
builds from there.”
At Carolina,
Ferris has been
teaching classes
on the history of music in the American South and its impact on
the region’s history and culture. His students have explored Native
American songs, Appalachian folk ballads and Afro-American hymns,
spirituals and work chants, and considered a range of forms including
blues, country music, gospel, jazz, rock and rap.
“I’ve always told my students … ‘You will not have a rich and
full life unless you do the things you love,’” he said.
With support from a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Nelson
Schwab Faculty Fellowship from the College’s Institute for the Arts
and Humanities, Ferris has been working on a book about the roots
of Mississippi blues, where he started his fieldwork decades ago. •
Southern Scholar Southern Scholar
Ferris holds professorship named for longtime friend, colleague
B y N ancy E . O ates
Bill Ferris, the Joel
R. Williamson
Eminent Professor
of History and
senior associate
director of
UNC’s Center for the Study of the American
South, is an astute chronicler of all things
Southern, from Delta blues to moon pies,
Hank Aaron to zydeco music.
Steve Exum
8 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Peter Sherwood built his first linguistic bridge at 15 when,
while a student, he also took on the role of teacher. His first pupil
for lessons in Hungarian was his physics instructor at Manchester
Grammar School in England in 1963. The instructor planned a trip
to Hungary, Sherwood’s native country.
“Suddenly I realized I had been blessed with two mother
tongues, and ever since I have wanted to provide a cultural bridge
between Hungary and the English-speaking world,” Sherwood said.
Sherwood is the new Laszlo
Birinyi Sr. Distinguished Professor
in Hungarian Language and
Culture in the department of
Slavic languages and literatures.
“In this post at UNC, I hope to
make that bridge ever stronger
and wider.”
Sherwood, who started
at UNC in January, is the
first professor of Hungarian
literature, culture and film at
Carolina. He also teaches the
language, which has been
offered at Carolina for five
years. Although Hungarian
is not a Slavic language, the
position has been placed in the Slavic languages
department for a number of reasons having to do with the
history and geography of the region.
The $1 million endowed professorship “is intended to
expose undergraduate students to Hungary’s extremely rich artistic
and cultural legacy and to train future specialists on Hungary at
the graduate level,” says Christopher Putney, chair of the Slavic
languages department. “Professor Sherwood has the talent and
qualifications to make Chapel Hill a world-class center of research
and scholarship in Hungarian studies.”
Those qualifications include about 35 years teaching in the
School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University
of London, where Sherwood was honorary senior lecturer before
moving to Chapel Hill with his wife, Julia. He has produced
Hungarian-English and English-Hungarian dictionaries, including
Oxford University Press’ first English-Hungarian dictionary, which
was recognized as one of the best Hungarian dictionaries by the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 2007.
A literary translator, Sherwood also has written a textbook,
A Concise Introduction to Hungarian (School of Slavonic and East
European Studies, University of London, 1996), and he plans a
revised second edition of the now out-of-print book.
The Carolina appointment “offers a once-in-a-generation
opportunity for me to establish a Hungarian studies program in
the United States based on the intensive study and learning of the
language,” says Sherwood, 59, who received the Order of Merit
from the republic of Hungary in December in London.
Historically and culturally, Hungary has been an integral —
though distinctive — part of the area for more than a millennium.
“No study of Europe is complete without it,” Sherwood said.
Demonstrating and making accessible “the fascinating
but shifting position of Hungary
between East and West,
making students aware of
the richness of the linguistic
and cultural heritage of
Hungary, will be the
major challenge” of his first
teaching position in the U.S.,
Sherwood added.
As a native of Hungary,
Sherwood has a bond with
Laszlo Birinyi Jr. ’67, who
established the professorship
named for his father. Sherwood
and the Birinyis
emigrated from
their homeland.
Sherwood, born
in Budapest,
moved to
England at 8
after the failed Hungarian revolution in 1956. Birinyi’s father led
the family out of Hungary during World War II, and they settled
in the U.S. when Birinyi was 7. The younger Birinyi grew up in
Pennsylvania and in 1962 enrolled at Carolina, where he majored in
history. He later established himself as a successful equity trader and
became president of Birinyi Associates Inc., a stock market research
firm. He lives with his family in Southport, Conn.
Sherwood and Birinyi are in distinguished company. Hungary
has produced such luminaries as Laszlo Biro, inventor of the ballpoint
pen, and financier and philanthropist George Soros.
“Hungary’s distinctive language and complex historical and
cultural development have produced people who have contributed
to the culture of the Western world, and to the U.S. in particular,”
Sherwood said. “The contribution and relevance of Hungarians to
the world as we know it today is quite astonishing.” •
Building Bridges Building Linguistic Bridges
New professorship exposes students to Hungary’s rich cultural legacy
B y J ess C larke
Peter Sherwood
is the new
Laszlo Birinyi Sr. Distinguished Professor
in Hungarian Language and Culture in the
department of Slavic languages and literatures.
Steve Exum
There were other suitors, but Carolina moved quickly, offering
Ramsey the Minnie N. Goldby Distinguished Professorship.
Established with a $666,000 gift by chemistry alumnus Steven
Goldby ’61 and his wife, Florence, of Atherton, Calif., in honor of
his mother, that amount was matched by $334,000 from the state’s
Distinguished Professors Endowment Trust Fund to create a $1
million endowment. Then came the coup de grace: Ramsey was also
able to design his research group’s 5,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art
lab space in Chapman Hall, part of the new Carolina Physical
Science Complex.
“I had always dreamed of designing my own laboratory from
the ground up,” explained Ramsey. “So to say the offer was a dream
come true is not exaggeration.”
In the fall of 2006, Ramsey received a $3.8 million grant from
the National Institutes of Health to further develop his lab-on-a-chip
technology. He predicts that in the next five to 10 years the
technology could make genetic information so inexpensive that
everyone could have
their DNA sequence as-sessed.
Such information
could allow health care
professionals to tailor
diagnosis, treatment
and prevention to each
person’s genetic profile.
Ramsey was one of several Carolina faculty
members to establish the Carolina Center of
Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence. The center’s
scientists work together to quickly harness
innovations in nanotechnology for the early
diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Ramsey said the opportunity to work with
colleagues in the School of Medicine also made
Carolina appealing.
“Through collaborations with medical
school faculty we are identifying and developing
important clinical applications for microfluidic
technologies — for example, a clinical diagnos-tic
tool that oncologists could use to quickly
diagnose the effectiveness of a chemotherapy
regime using a drop of blood,” Ramsey said.
“Our efforts in developing microfluidics
has not only been enjoyable research, but it has also been
satisfying to see commercial products that are based upon our work,
and that they are being used for important problems such as drug
discovery that will hopefully benefit society.” •
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 9
Carolina chemist, engineer and entrepreneur Mike Ramsey
traces his passion for scientific innovation to a chemistry set he
received as a birthday present in junior high school. Until his
imagination was captured by chemistry, Ramsey claims he was a
mediocre student.
It was also the gift that kept on giving. With his scientific
interest sparked, the flame was fed by undergraduate work in
chemistry at Bowling Green State University. Ramsey started
laying the foundations for technology he would later pioneer
— microfluidics or “lab-on–a-chip.”
Ramsey’s Ph.D. in chemistry from Indiana University was
followed by work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he
first focused on spectroscopy, a technique he used to identify single
molecules. He established himself as a leader with an ability to
persevere and attract project funding despite skepticism about new
ideas — the practical uses for these tiny fluidic circuits, for example.
The lab-on-a-chip allows lab tests to be performed in miniature
on silicon, glass or plastic chips that have been etched with a series
of tiny interconnected channels through which chemicals and other
fluids can run. These are then mixed in a miniscule reactor under
the control of a computer. The technology has applications for
everything from drug discovery
to environmental monitoring.
In 1996, lab-on-a-chip won
Discover magazine’s Technology
Award, a NOVA Award from
Lockheed Martin Corp. and an
R&D 100 Award.
As the 21st century dawned,
Ramsey was “getting antsy” for
a new challenge. “I’d gone as
far as I could go with regards to
promotions at Oak Ridge National
Laboratory and was looking for a
new environment. Academia was
calling, again, but this time I was
ready to answer,” he said. At the top
of his list was UNC, where a graduate
school classmate and friend, Jim
Jorgenson, W.R. Kenan Jr. Professor
of Chemistry, had inspired Ramsey
with his work related to reducing the
size of chemical separation techniques.
“In addition to having friends and colleagues at UNC,
I also liked the area — the proximity to the entrepreneurial spirit
found in Research Triangle Park,” Ramsey said.
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Good Chemistry Good Chemistry
Innovator lured by great faculty support, colleagues and lab
B y L isa H . T owle
UNC chemist, engineer and entrepreneur
Mike Ramsey traces his passion for
scientific innovation to a
chemistry set he received
as a birthday present in
junior high school. Steve Exum
The torch
was passed
when Pam Durban was
named the first Doris Betts Distinguished
Professor of Creative Writing.
10 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
When beloved English professor and noted
author Doris Betts retired from the
classroom after 35 years of teaching
at Carolina, devoted alumni and
friends created a distinguished
professorship in creative writing in
her honor.
The torch was passed when
Rosa P. “Pam” Durban — whose
writing is included in a collection of
the best American short stories of the
past century — was named the first
Doris Betts Distinguished Professor of
Creative Writing.
The endowed faculty chair was
established in 2001 with a major gift
from 1950 alumnus Ben M. Jones III
and more than 200 individual donors.
They were all anxious to honor Betts,
the nationally respected Southern voice
in American literature, author of six
novels and three short story collections,
who had been the Alumni Distinguished
Professor at Carolina.
Durban describes the moment (then) English department
chair William Andrews offered her the Betts professorship. “The
sun rose and shone fully on me.”
• Honoring a lively heart
“The search committee faced an exhaustive nationwide
search for the first Betts professor. Doris, our program’s lively heart
for over three decades, was retiring,” explained creative writing
professor Michael McFee. “We sought a writer as fearless and
accomplished, a teacher as inspiring yet demanding, a colleague as
generous and devoted as she was.”
They selected a gifted storyteller and teacher, a woman born
and raised in Aiken, S.C., recipient of an undergraduate degree
from UNC-Greensboro and an MFA from the University of Iowa.
Before coming to UNC in the fall of 2001, Durban was a professor
at Georgia State University and had been director of the creative
writing program at Ohio University.
McFee is thrilled with Durban’s appointment. “Pam Durban’s
fiction and essays are literary art of the first order,” he said. “Her
excellent and intense instruction is already legendary, and her
dedication to UNC’s community of writers is obvious to all
of her lucky students and fellow teachers.”
• Antebellum ghosts and
country music stars
Durban’s prose mesmerizes readers with
stories about relationships and traditions, many
of them purely, beautifully, uniquely Southern,
from antebellum family ghosts to stardom-seeking
country music singers.
“I love the initial impulse of writing,
the hard work of revising, people reading
and reacting to my words,” said Durban.
“I love the whole process and the idea
that it is a process.”
Her short works are collected in All
Set About with Fever Trees and Other Stories
and appear in The Best American Short Stories
of the Century, edited by John Updike, and
the prestigious Pushcart Prize: Best of the
Small Presses anthology, as well as the 20th
anniversary edition of Best of the South.
Her novel, The
Laughing Place, was
followed by So Far
Back, honored with
the 2001 Lillian Smith
Award for Fiction.
She was founder
and co-editor of the Georgia State University literary journal Five
Points, which won the National Council of Literary Magazines’
1998 Best New Journal Award.
• Once in a lifetime teacher
Durban is also passionate about working with students. She
transforms her students into lovers of the printed word, through
their own writings and through reading the work of others.
“It takes a lot of energy and time to teach students how to
engage with their work,” Durban said. “I tell them that I take them
seriously. In return, I expect them to work to make their writing
more honest, more generous, more insightful.”
Durban jokes with colleagues that each year she writes a novel’s
worth of comments on her students’ stories. Her commitment pays
off when students acknowledge that they’ve learned to appreciate
the art of writing.
“Professor Durban was my once-in-a-lifetime teacher,” said
senior Aaron Marcus, an economics and public policy double
major. “She taught me to write tautly, yet expressively, to appreciate
writing as artists appreciate the aesthetics of painting.” •
Lifetime Teacher ‘Once - in - a - Lifetime Teacher’
Pam Durban named first Doris Betts professor
B y J b S helton
Steve Exum
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 11
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Liberal Arts Love of the Liberal Arts
David Frey’s vision has boosted the arts
B y C atherine H ouse
Back in the late ’50s when his high school track team
came to UNC for spring training, David Frey ’64 ’67 JD knew
he was destined to be a Tar Heel. He may have been born a full-blooded
Yankee — his family has lived in Grand Rapids, Mich.,
for five generations — but even he couldn’t resist the lure of
springtime in Chapel Hill.
Frey, a third-generation banker (now retired, but busier than
ever), knew his career would be in banking, but he purposefully
opted for an English degree. “The liberal arts are the foundation
of an undergraduate education,” he said. “Every undergraduate
should have exposure to the arts in some form or another.”
Because Frey is so thankful for the great influence Carolina
and the College have had on his life, he continues to give back to
the University time and again and has made it his personal mission
to lure all sorts of people here — from accomplished playwrights
and musicians to his own two sons.
One of 20 cabinet members for the Carolina First Campaign,
Frey helped kick-start the College’s campaign by establishing three
distinguished professorships — one each in dramatic art, music
and American art.
“I consider these
the three legs of the
art stool,” Frey said.
“The arts bring
pleasure to people of
all ages and reflect
mankind’s most
creative efforts.”
While a search
continues for the
Frey Distinguished
Professorship
of American
Art, both Frey
professorships in
dramatic art and
music have been
filled by highly
accomplished and talented scholars.
Leon Katz, a widely published playwright with many
original works, holds the Frey Distinguished Professorship of
Dramatic Art. A legend in the area of American dramaturgy
(where literature meets practical stage practice), Katz has
previously served on the faculties of Carnegie Mellon University,
Yale University School of Drama and the University of California
at Los Angeles.
The Frey Distinguished Professorship of Music is held by
Tim Carter, who also serves as chair of the music department.
Carter, who came to Carolina from Royal Holloway, University of
London, focuses on opera and music of Italy in the 16th and 17th
centuries. He also has a special interest in the musicals of Rodgers
and Hammerstein.
Of the Frey professorship, Carter said, “It encouraged me to
come to UNC and enabled me to take new directions in my own
research on American musical theatre that has also fed into my
teaching. If in passing Hill Hall you hear the sounds of ‘Oklahoma!’
or ‘South Pacific’ echoing through the rafters, give thanks to David,
as do I. His generous support for the arts, and arts scholarship, has
had a striking impact at Carolina.”
Prior to the Carolina First Campaign, Frey, along with his
family’s foundation, established the Frey Foundation Distinguished
Visiting Professorship which brings to campus prominent leaders
in international policy, public affairs and the performing arts. Recent
distinguished
visitors have
included David
Gergen, Christine
Todd Whitman,
Frank Rich,
Harry Belafonte,
former Brazilian
President
Fernando Henrique Cardoso
and Ted Turner.
Frey, who served on the
board of directors of the Arts and
Sciences Foundation from 1991
to 1997 and from 1999 to 2006,
was also pivotal in helping to raise
private funds to supplement an
$8.4 million state appropriation to
complete the Center for Dramatic
Art in 1998.
From arts professors of the
highest caliber to world-renowned
public leaders and performing artists, Frey is all about bringing
the stars to Carolina.
And with help from generous donors like Frey, it’s not
surprising that the stars want to come to Chapel Hill. “Eyes across
the nation are watching the incredible momentum building in
the arts at Carolina,” Frey said. “You have an arts renaissance on
campus, and I’m glad to be a part of it.” •
Back in the late ’50s when his high school track
team came to UNC for spring training, David
Frey ’64 ’67 JD knew
he was
destined
to be a
Tar Heel.
Michael Buck
Ground-breaking
12 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Professor Dinesh Manocha,
a renowned expert in the computer
science field, says the finest products of
his department at UNC are its students.
That may be because the department
is one of the best in the nation, but it
also attests to Manocha’s dedication to
his students and their academic pursuits.
Manocha was awarded the Phi Delta
Theta/Matthew Mason Distinguished
Professorship in the College of Arts and
Sciences in 2006. The professorship was
named in honor of Matthew Mason, a
longtime employee of the fraternity who was
later inducted as a member of the fraternity.
It’s the second College professorship funded
by a Carolina fraternity.
In 2005, philosophy professor C.D.C.
“David” Reeve became the Delta Kappa
Epsilon Distinguished Professor, the first
“Greek professor” named at UNC. Three
sororities have launched campaigns for
distinguished professorships in the College,
including Delta Delta Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma and Chi Omega.
Led by the efforts of Shoff Allison ’98 of Charlotte, N.C.,
nearly 300 Phi Delt alumni contributed more than $750,000
toward the professorship. Allison’s enthusiasm for the campaign,
along with the recognition for Mason, inspired one-third of the
fraternity’s alumni to make gifts.
The professorship links the fraternity with some of the nation’s
best teachers and scholars, such as Manocha, who concentrates his
research on graphics, geometry and robotics, all sub-branches of
computer science. His academic interests include computer-based
simulation, which has a plethora of real-life applications.
“Take, for example, the movies ‘A Bug’s Life’ and ‘Toy
Story,’” Manocha explained. “How do you make the graphics in
these movies look realistic?”
This research has applications in entertainment and gaming —
some recent endeavors are to create genuine emotion of characters
in video games and to produce realistic-sounding synthetic noises
for interactive applications.
Outside the entertainment industry, the U.S. Department of
Defense uses Manocha’s simulation work to prepare soldiers for
training, especially for urban warfare. In addition, his group has
worked closely with designers at Boeing, who employ computer-aided
design methods to generate and validate a computer model
of the 777 and 787 airplanes.
Manocha also contributes to the
medical field by simulating procedures
such as a catheter used in liver cancer
treatment. Simulation techniques
allow processes to be tested and
perfected for optimal performance in
real life. Some of the earlier simulation
technologies produced by his research
group are now used by tens of
thousands of researchers worldwide
and have been licensed to more
than 40 commercial vendors.
Manocha integrates these
realistic applications and research
questions with teaching.
You can discuss cool stuff in
the classroom, he said, like how to
make sure a robotic
vacuum cleaner
covers an entire
room. Students in
his graduate course
“Robot Motion
Planning” recently
tackled this matter.
Manocha believes teaching is a two-way dialogue in which
the professor should ask open questions to stimulate further
academic inquiry.
“Computer science is still evolving,” he said, “There are many
opportunities to ask, ‘Are we doing this right, or can we do it
better?’ And the classroom is the best place to figure that out.��
Manocha and his research group are extending those learning
opportunities outside UNC boundaries through outreach programs
meant to expose middle and high school students to new computer
technologies, such as a computer-based 3-D painting system.
Through this haptic paint technology, students “paint” on a computer
screen with a virtual paintbrush, each brushstroke simulating what
would be produced with real paint. Manocha advocates this program
to stimulate young people’s excitement about computer science.
Manocha said he’s honored to be the Phi Delta Theta/Matthew
Mason Distinguished Professor. As funding for projects becomes
harder to obtain, the support from this endowed professorship gives
him many more options, including the flexibility to pursue a “new
crazy idea,” which in the past have led to significant breakthroughs
with a multitude of applications. •
Greeks’ Groundbreaking Support
Computer scientist holds second professorship funded by UNC fraternity
B y C aroline H utcheson ’ 0 8
Dinesh
Manocha,
a renowned
expert in the computer science
field, says the finest products of his department
at UNC are its students.
Dan Sears
• Research funds make
a difference
sixth among
all states in
public funding
of higher
education, the College relies more than
ever on private funding to recruit, nurture
and enhance its faculty. In particular,
the University’s outstanding liberal arts
tradition hinges upon its ability to recruit
and retain superlative faculty in the arts
and sciences.
Faculty support was Carolina First’s
highest priority. Donors responded
with $154 million in endowment and
expendable gifts, creating endowed
professorships for senior and mid-career
scholars; faculty fellowships in
the College’s Institute for the Arts and
Humanities (IAH); Faculty Partners
funds and faculty excellence funds, which
provide research and course development
grants; travel monies and summer salaries.
Ralph Mosley ’63 worked his way
through UNC selling Bibles door to door
for Southwestern Company of Nashville,
Tenn. Fifteen years later, he was appointed
the company’s CEO. In addition to the
$250,000 he and his wife, Juli, donated
toward need-based scholarships, the
couple committed $1 million for faculty
recruitment and retention in the College.
In 2006-2007, the Mosley Faculty
Enhancement Fund supported UNC
chemist Matt Redinbo whose research
focused on killing antibiotic-resistant
bacteria. He took an unusual approach
that no one had ever tried. Other
universities were looking appreciatively
at Redinbo. So the College awarded
him additional financial support for his
research, funded in part by the Mosley
Fund and other private recruitment and
retention funds, to show how much
Carolina wanted to keep him. Redinbo
used the money to buy a key piece of
equipment to test his idea.
“We were able to go after something
only we had thought of,” said Redinbo,
whose work has received national media
attention. “We wouldn’t have been able to
do that if it weren’t for this generous, no-strings-
attached kind of support.”
Redinbo took the faculty support as
“a mandate to try something that was a
little risky.”
“Not only can we stop the transfer
of antibiotic-resistant genes, but we can
kill bacteria that are harboring these genes,
oshua Knobe at 31 was a rising superstar
in the world of philosophy before he
had taught a single class at Carolina.
His work in the new field of
“experimental philosophy” has drawn
accolades from fellow scholars for its
pioneering methods of research, which
include chatting with people in a public
park to test how ordinary people think.
Knobe had just completed his Ph.D.
at Princeton in 2005 when he had job
offers from five universities. The Spray-
Randleigh Fellowship helped bring him
to Chapel Hill.
“It was wonderful the way, just as
I was trying to make a decision about
which job to take, UNC was able to show
this strong commitment to encouraging
junior faculty engaged in interdisciplinary
research,” Knobe said.
Early in the Carolina First campaign,
a $1.2 million expendable gift from
the Spray Foundation of Atlanta and
the Randleigh Foundation Trust of
Chapel Hill provided additional research
support for faculty studying European
and American culture and enabled them
to integrate their scholarship into the
undergraduate classroom. It also helped
the College of Arts and Sciences recruit
and retain more than 77 outstanding
scholars, such as Knobe.
• Faculty Support gifts
top $154 Million
The College’s efforts to recruit
and retain its faculty are increasingly
challenged by ever sharper competition
from wealthy private institutions, peer
public research universities, and even
government and industry. Even with
generous support from the citizens of
North Carolina, which last year ranked
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 13
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
Faculty Development
B y D e l H e l t o n & N a n c y E . O a t e s
RIGHT: Chemist
Matt Redinbo
benefited from
private funds that
supported his
research on killing
antibiotic-resistant
bacteria.
Private support helps keep and attract outstanding professors
continued
Isaac Sandlin J
Dan Sears
selectively killing them,” he said. “That
has the potential to be a big contribution
to our battle against antibiotic resistant
bacterial infections.”
Political science professor Mark
Crescenzi also benefited from faculty
support funds. He received
a research budget as part of a
retention package when Texas
A&M University was attempting
to recruit him. The money came
from the Wilson Family Fund.
Loyal Wilson ’70, his wife
and daughters created the fund
to keep Carolina professors who
“inspire students and instill in them
a passion for learning and a lifelong
dedication to their communities,”
said Wilson, the founder and
a managing director of Primus
Capital Funds, a private equity
firm in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and a
member of the Arts and Sciences
Foundation board of directors.
Crescenzi and his team are studying
the way governments and terrorist groups
interact. The research is important to
understanding and creating strategy to ease
tensions in the Middle East, for instance.
The research funds allowed him to go to
some high-profile conferences and take
graduate students with him.
The retention package, along
with other support, also afforded him
the opportunity to develop a successful
grant proposal for the National Science
Foundation that provides $500,000 over
three years.
“You could make the argument
that the retention package paid for itself,”
he said.
Crescenzi collaborates with
sociologist Charles Kurzman and Robert
Jenkins, the director of UNC’s Center
for Slavic, Eurasian and East European
Studies, both of whom study problems of
conflict in international relations.
“The College of Arts and Sciences
said, ‘We really want you to stay and keep
doing what you’re doing,’” Crescenzi said.
“I have colleagues around the country
in state and private institutions who are
14 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
RIGHT: Political
scientist Mark Crescenzi
received research
money from the Wilson
Family Fund. BELOW:
Historian Yasmin Saikia.
Isaac Sandlin
Partners Connect
• Fresh Ideas and Renewed
Commitment to Teaching
awarded semester-long IAH fellowships
during 2007-2008 through a competitive
process. The time away from the
classroom relieves faculty from teaching
responsibilities and enables them to work
in Chapel Hill without interruption on a
project for the semester.
Fellows participate in a weekly
seminar that provides a forum for
discussing their projects with colleagues
in other departments. Younger faculty
learn from senior members, and more
experienced faculty gain insights from
those more recently in graduate school.
The experience prepares the
fellows to return reinvigorated to the
classroom with fresh ideas and a renewed
commitment to teaching.
• Faculty partners connect
The popular Faculty Partners program
continues to help faculty who requested
funding for specific projects. During
Carolina First, more than 50 donors made
gifts to the Faculty Partners Fund, which
provides faculty with financial support
for their research, whether it’s for lab
equipment, travel to a conference, or other
costs related to their research and unmet by
other funding sources.
Donors pledge a $25,000 expendable
gift — $5,000 a year for five years — to
become Faculty Partners, and they are
matched with faculty members who have
submitted proposals for funding.
These are examples of how Faculty
Partners are making a difference for faculty:
always
struggling
for research
funds. This
is a dream
to not have
to be in that
position.”
ideas renewed
commitment teaching
Classics professor Carolyn Connor
spent her 2006 spring break in church
— 50 of them to be more precise — in
Rome and Ravenna, Italy. A Chapman
Family Fellow, she was researching her
book, Saints and Spectacle: Byzantine Mosaics
in Context, and the travel time and funding
were only part of the fellowship’s benefits.
“This was an immensely rewarding
semester, because the fellows of the
Institute for the Arts and Humanities (IAH)
made such a supportive and stimulating
group of colleagues with whom to discuss
my work,” Connor said.
“I was grateful for the travel stipend,
which allowed me to travel to Italy and
observe a number of mosaiced churches.
The first-hand experience of standing in
and ‘sharing’ the space with its medieval
viewers is vital for a realization of the
function and impact of monumental art.”
Connor’s fellowship, funded by
Max C. Chapman Jr. ’66 of New York,
is one of 17 named IAH fellowships.
Two dozen College faculty from the
arts, humanities and social sciences were
Dan Sears
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 15
Carolina First F a c u lt y S u p p o r t
• Todd BenDor, city and regional
planning, is studying the impact of
urban development on environmental
systems, specifically wetland restoration
and creation. With his Faculty Partner
funds, BenDor will purchase research
materials and hire a student assistant. He
is also collaborating with the Renaissance
he Hyde Family Foundation pledged
$5 million to endow the Institute for
the Arts and Humanities’ (IAH)
Academic Leadership Program in the
College. The program was named for Ruel
W. Tyson, religious studies professor and
former longtime director of the institute.
Foundation president Barbara Hyde ’83
and her husband, former AutoZone CEO
Pitt Hyde ’65, have supported many of the
institute’s programs, and gave the lead gift
toward IAH’s permanent home, Hyde Hall,
completed on McCorkle Place in 2002.
The institute, said Barbara Hyde, pro-vides
opportunities for faculty development
that didn’t exist previously on campus.
“I’ve been fortunate over the years
to have had meaningful relationships with
individual professors who inspired me as
a student and with entrepreneurial faculty
who I worked
with when I was
a development
officer at UNC,”
Hyde said. “It
was from those
relationships
that I came to
appreciate the
central, powerful
impact faculty have
on the University.”
Now that
she serves on the
UNC Board of
Trustees, Hyde said she appreciates even
more deeply the importance of retaining that
intellectual talent.
“We’re in a very competitive market
where universities are raiding each other
all the time,” Hyde said. “Great businesses
know that one of their first priorities
is attracting and retaining talent. The
University recognizes that as well. If we lose
faculty and have to go into the market to
replace them, it will cost a whole lot more.
It’s smarter to invest money on the front end
to retain those scholars and researchers.”
The Ruel Tyson Academic Leadership
Program in the IAH sponsors seven to 10
leadership fellows annually. The Academic
Leadership Fellows, who come from all
departments and schools at UNC, participate
in a weeklong leadership training program,
two overnight retreats, monthly leadership
development forums, weekly seminars to
discuss critical issues facing the University
and other networking opportunities.
“In graduate school, no one is taught
how to be a department chair,” said Joy
Kasson, professor and chair of American
studies and a 2004 Leadership Fellow. “To
be effective, you have to know the ways
in which you can get things done at the
University. You have to know effective
leadership skills, how to manage personnel,
think about budgets, create new programs and
implement things you want to accomplish.”
Kasson, a three-time IAH Faculty Fellow,
began teaching at Carolina in 1971. She was
among a group of faculty who proposed that
a program be established to address issues
relevant to research and teaching.
“The Academic Leadership Program
helps faculty think of themselves as
innovators, either in formal administrative
positions, or by creating new programs or
initiatives,” she said. “For me, the program
helped me learn more about directing an
academic department and finding ways to
make it grow. In American studies, we have
added more faculty, more undergraduate
majors, and we are now planning a graduate
program — all of which I can trace back to
the training I received through the generosity
of this program.”
“Over the years, the leadership program
has built bridges,” Kasson added. “It has made
the fellows more connected, more loyal and
more committed to staying at UNC.” •
ABOVE: American studies professor
Joy Kasson was a Leadership Fellow.
RIGHT: Donor Barbara Hyde.
Computing Institute in Chapel Hill to
create computer models of urban growth
to assess the effects of land use change on
water quality and availability in the face
of drought and infrastructure stress.
• Yasmin Saikia, history, is
preparing maps and illustrations,
compiling indexes and editing
manuscripts for her two books about the
1971 Indo-Pakistani War. The first book
is based on 10 oral accounts by survivors
in Bangladesh. The second book weaves
together political and historical events
with the experiences of violence suffered
by victims and perpetrators in Pakistan,
Bangladesh and India. •
Supporting Academic
Leadership B y N a n c y E . O a t e s
Isaac Sandlin
T
Global Giving opens new doors
Carolina First Gl o b a l Ed u c a t i o n
B y D e e R e i d
16 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
programs,” said Robert Miles, associate dean
for study abroad and international exchanges.
Private gifts have created about 25 new
scholarship funds for undergraduate study
abroad. The Phillips Ambassadors Program,
funded by former U.S. Ambassador Earl
N. “Phil” Phillips ’62 of High Point, N.C.,
enables up to 50 undergraduates per year to
study in Asia (see example page 18).
Another innovative initiative, the
Carolina Southeast Asia Summer Program
funded by Alston Gardner ’77, provides
scholarships covering all program costs for
25 students a year to study in Singapore,
Malaysia and Thailand at the end of their
first undergraduate year.
A generous gift from Amy and Robert
Brinkley of Charlotte also supports Asian
studies. The Grier/Woods Presbyterian China
Initiative, named for family members who
were missionaries in China during the late
18th and 20th centuries, provides: scholarships
for students to study Mandarin in Beijing,
travel fellowships for faculty research and
course development activities in Asia, and an
additional lecturer in Mandarin language at
UNC. Amy Woods Brinkley, a 1978 graduate
of UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, was
named one of the 50 most powerful women
of 2007 by Fortune magazine.
Several scholarship programs support
study abroad for students from North
Carolina. Mary Anne Dickson ’63 and
Martha O’Neal Johnson ’76 established
a scholarship in honor of their late father,
Charles Garland Johnson Sr., a banker and
community leader in Elkin, N.C. This
endowment fund, which gives preference
to students from Surry, Wilkes and Yadkin
counties, supported study abroad scholarships
for 15 North Carolina students in 2007.
(See page 17 for a story about one scholarship
winner and page 23 for a profile on Mary Anne
Dickson.)
Dickson’s husband, Alan, was instru-mental
in establishing the Harris Teeter
Study Abroad Scholarship with gifts from
Harris Teeter and the Dickson Foundation.
The Harris Teeter supermarket chain is a
subsidiary of Ruddick Corp. which Alan
Dickson chaired until his retirement. When
fully funded, the scholarship will support
study abroad for about 25 in-state students
each year, with preference to Harris Teeter
associates or their children.
An anonymous gift established the
Jenkins Study Abroad and International
Experience Fund, earmarked for students
from eastern North Carolina.
The Carolina First campaign also raised
about $4 million for endowed professorships
to attract and support outstanding faculty
who specialize in international topics. These
include:
• The Anthony Harrington
Professorship in Latin American Studies,
established with a gift from Anthony
Harrington ’63, former U.S. Ambassador
to Brazil, and his wife, Hope. The gift
was matched by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation to create a $1.6 million
endowment.
• The Gussenhoven Distinguished
Professorship in Latin American Studies,
established with a gift from John and
Harriette Gussenhoven, 1968 and 1971
UNC graduates.
• The Jordan Family Distinguished
Professorship in International Studies,
established by a bequest from William Jordan
’38 in honor of his late mother, Louise
Manning Huske Jordan. The benefactor’s
nephew Stuart Jordan ’85 and his wife, Sheri,
funded the professorship during William
Jordan’s lifetime; Dr. Jordan died March 10.
The College also received $2 million for
Asian studies and the Carolina Asia Center, as
part of the nationwide Freeman Foundation
Undergraduate Asian Studies Funding
Initiative. The gift funds faculty positions in
Chinese and Japanese language and literature,
course development, library acquisitions,
a speakers and visitors series, study abroad
scholarships and programs in Asia. The
Foundation’s support made it possible for
Carolina to become the first university in the
UNC system to offer undergraduate majors
in Chinese and Japanese. •
Not too long ago, fewer than one in
five Carolina undergraduates studied abroad,
and it was difficult for international experts
to work together on campus because they
were spread across the University.
Now more than one-third of Carolina
students go abroad before graduating and
a gleaming four-story building has brought
together key international programs under
one roof.
Nearly 10 percent of Carolina First
funds in the College support international
initiatives. The impact is already being
felt by students and faculty in Chapel Hill
and abroad.
“International education and the
perspective it provides can’t be over
emphasized in today’s interconnected
world,” said David F. McSpadden, chair of
the Advisory Board for Global Education,
who received his undergraduate degree in
international studies from UNC in 1983.
“Wherever a student’s career interests lie
— medicine, business, art, government,
journalism or elsewhere — being able to
work confidently and adeptly with peers
across cultures will be fundamental to success.”
With support from Advisory Board
volunteers and many donors, the College
has raised nearly $36 million for international
initiatives. About $19 million supports
scholarships for studies overseas and another
$4.5 million underwrites programs that
enhance study abroad, such as UNC faculty-led
field research seminars, international
curriculum development and graduate
student fellowships.
Carolina First donors gave more than
$7.2 million to the FedEx Global Education
Center, which was funded by a combination
of public and private funds, including a
$5 million gift from FedEx Corp. (see page 19).
Private funds for scholarships and
programs have resulted in more students
going abroad. Last year about 1,350 Carolina
undergraduates studied abroad in more than
300 programs in 70 countries.
“Private funds have been fundamental
to the expansion of our study abroad
In the Shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 17
trip from the Nairobi airport to
Kilimanjaro Base Camp.
“We saw giraffes and zebras,
but the most National-Geo-like
[scene] was the Maasai herding
their cows with their colorful
garb blowing in the wind in
front of the sunset,” she wrote
in an e-mail from the bush.
She lived with other
students in huts called
“bandas.” They got used to
outdoor showers and the
ever-present dust and heat
during the dry season.
“What surprised me most was the
overall comfort I began to feel with being
in such a different place,” Glasgow wrote.
“Dirt under our nails and in every crack in
our skin, bandanas and t-shirts, same outfit
three days in a row, cold showers while
peeking over the door at the acacia trees,
brushing my teeth in front of Kilimanjaro
... the squawk of the huge ibis birds each
morning, rice, mashed potatoes, pasta, beans
and pineapple every day ... very starry skies
and already at least three rainbows(!),” she
recalled. “Everything became a comfort,
and this place began to feel like home.”
Glasgow took language, wildlife
management and environmental studies
classes with Kenyan professors in an open-air
“chumba” or outdoors on hilltops with
panoramic views of surrounding ranches
and distant Nairobi.
She also participated in wildlife research
expeditions, where she camped with the
other students in national parks within
earshot of the roar of lions and leopards
at night. There were no fences between
their camp and the wildlife, but they were
protected by experienced armed guards.
“These guys were amazing,” Glasgow
wrote. “They could hear a lioness breathing
while we were talking, and then they
chased it away!”
Glasgow observed buffalo, cheetahs,
cranes, crocodiles, eagles, elephants, gazelles,
giraffes, hippopotami, hyenas, lions, warthogs
and zebras. She collected data on the animals
and analyzed the impact of local agricultural
practices on wildlife and their habitat. She
interviewed crop farmers and visited Maasai
herders in a traditional “boma” or village.
She learned about the conflicting
needs of crop farmers, cattle herders and
wildlife — all relying on the land for their
survival.
“Our goal is to help figure out how
to go about a sustainable solution to the
human-wildlife conflict in this area without
compromising the economic and cultural
livelihoods of the people here,” she wrote.
“It is very complicated. ...This land is
suitable for pastoralism (herding and keeping
cattle), however the Maasai are feeling
both political and economic pressure to
switch over to an agricultural existence. The
farmers around our campsite told us about
the wildlife that ruin their crops.”
Glasgow also witnessed a Maasai rite-of-
passage ceremony that takes place every
10 years as villagers come together to induct
young boys into Moranhood, the status of
a warrior. “This was a beautiful sight,” she
wrote. “There was chanting and jumping,
face-painting ... and all of the men of the
village were there to watch their sons.”
She said her semester in Kenya was
everything she wished for, and more.
“I was hoping to not only learn about
the wildlife and the conservation problems
facing this area, but also something about
myself by being placed outside of my
culture and my comfort zone,” she wrote in
a December e-mail. “By being here I have
really learned how people of the world are
so different but still so alike. I have learned
the frustrations and rewards of working in a
team, and I have learned how to be happy
with less.” •
— Anna Glasgow returned to North
Carolina before violence broke out in Kenya over
the recent presidential election. She is continuing
her study of Kiswahili at UNC and hoping for
peace in Kenya, so that she may return to work
there in the future.
ABOVE: Anna Glasgow, center,
enjoys a pickup soccer game in Kenya.
Carolina First
B y D e e R e i d
Gl o b a l Ed u c a t i o n
Anna Glasgow ’08 of Salisbury, N.C., had
been abroad before for church missions in
Latin America and a European tour. But her
first academic experience overseas this past fall
— open-air Kiswahili language classes and
wildlife research in the shadow of Mount
Kilimanjaro — was profoundly different.
A biology major with an environmental
studies minor, Glasgow collected data on
the habits of an extraordinary array of exotic
creatures in the wild. She learned firsthand
about a land and culture that most of us
know only through National Geographic or
the Discovery Channel. And she experienced
the surreal thrill of realizing that those
friendly armed guards really were necessary
to keep hungry wildlife away from her camp.
Glasgow was one of 34 American
students studying and conducting research
through the School for Field Studies Kenya
Wildlife Management Studies program. Her
trip was supported by a Charles Garland
Johnson Sr. Scholarship, made possible by
a gift from College of Arts and Sciences
alumni Mary Anne Dickson ’63 and Martha
O’Neal Johnson ’76 in honor of their late
father, a banker and community leader in
Elkin, N.C. The scholarship is for UNC-Chapel
Hill students from North Carolina,
with preference to those from Surry, Wilkes
and Yadkin counties.
Glasgow realized she was in for an
adventure when she gazed out the Range
Rover window during the bumpy five-hour
China’s urban building boom
Carolina First
18 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
China.” This was one of three
comparative globalization study
abroad programs, also made pos-sible
by private funds.
“The goal was to
introduce the students to China’s
extraordinary recent growth and
development, but do it in a way
that connected to China’s deep
past as well as the globalized
world at large,” said Campanella,
an assistant professor in the
department of city and regional
planning. “Even without the
travel, it would have been an
intensive bit of education. We literally went
from the Silk Road to the Special Economic
Zones in four weeks.”
They attended lectures in the morning
and took field trips in the afternoon to visit
developers, contractors or businesses, or to
visit urban villages, where they encountered
massive factories and crowded public
housing developments.
“Entire families live in a single room,”
Jacobs said.
She was especially interested in “The
Great Peace Village,” a farming community
in Xi’an. The village has survived for
hundreds of years in one of the most arid
parts of western China. Its most notable
feature is an ancient form of sustainable
building, the “yao dong” house, tucked
into the hillsides.
“Houses are built like caves into
the ground to increase surface area for
farming,” said Jacobs. The earthen homes,
the ultimate in “green architecture,” are
also warm in winter and cool in summer.
Most of the villagers had never
seen a Westerner before, she said. “As we
approached each house, the men and
women climbed their trees to pick fruit to
stuff in our pockets and bags. They had a
celebration with music and fruit and lots of
pictures. We were welcomed warmly.”
In addition to classes and field trips,
the UNC students conducted independent
research. Jacobs explored how China reached
its current point of intense development
and what it must do to sustain it, including
economic, environmental and infrastructure
needs and impacts.
“China will continue to develop,” Jacobs
said. “The goal now is to ensure that China’s
development is sustainable and beneficial
to all its people. One in five people live in
China. If China suffers, so does the world.”
Jacobs enjoyed getting to know Chinese
students at each of the universities that hosted
their classes. Many of them spoke English
well, and they appreciated the opportunity
to further hone their language skills by
conversing with Americans. At first the
conversation would involve “small talk”
about American television shows. “Oh, yes,
I watch ‘Sex and the City’ and the ‘West
Wing,’” they would tell Jacobs.
“But once they were comfortable,
we were able to discuss the relationship
between China and America,” Jacobs said.
“And when they truly trusted me, we were
able to talk about the Cultural Revolution
and Communism. I still keep in touch with
a few of the students I met.”
“My experience in China was incred-ible,”
Jacobs said. “But it does not matter
where you study abroad as long as you
stretch yourself past what you experience in a
classroom and immerse yourself in a different
culture. Our world is shrinking, and borders
are breaking away. I recommend studying
abroad to every student at Carolina.” •
ABOVE: Sarah Jacobs, center, visited with Chinese villagers
at a “yao dong” home built into the hillside.
Gl o b a l Ed u c a t i o n
Why would an international studies
major focusing on Arabic and the Middle
East spend a summer abroad studying the
urban building boom in China? Sarah
Jacobs ’08 from High Point, N.C., had
plenty of good reasons.
For starters, she is interested in
economic development, and China is
experiencing the fastest growing economy
in the world. Last summer UNC urban
planning experts Thomas J. Campanella and
Yan Song were leading an intensive four-week
trip to urban centers in China to study
the unprecedented building boom taking
place there. Campanella is the author of The
Concrete Dragon: China’s Urban Revolution and
What It Means for the World (see page 56).
“Though my academic focus is in the
Middle East, the comparative study in China
will be invaluable,” Jacobs explained. “What
happens in China affects the world.”
Studying in Asia would also
complement her other international
experiences. She had already studied abroad
in London and Oxford, through UNC’s
Honors Program (see page 28), and she knew
she would be headed to Cairo for the fall
2007 semester. “I wanted to study in China
to become aware of other parts of the world,”
she said.
A major factor leading Jacobs to China
was High Point business executive and former
U.S. Ambassador Earl N. “Phil” Phillips ’62,
who made a major gift to the University to
establish the Phillips Ambassadors Program,
providing scholarships for study in Asia for
up to 50 Carolina undergraduates each year.
Jacobs was among the inaugural group of
2007 “Phillips Ambassadors.”
“I would not have had the opportunity
to study in China if it wasn’t for Mr.
Phillips’ generosity,” she said. “The Phillips
Ambassadors program allowed me to be a
truly international student.”
Jacobs and 14 other Carolina under-graduates
spent a week with Campanella
and Song in each of four cities: Hong Kong,
Shenzhen, Xi’an and Shanghai, as part of
their seminar on “Transforming Urban
B y D e e R e i d
Portal to the world
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 19
The Global
Education Center was
completed with state
bond revenues and
more than $7.2 million
in private funds,
including $5 million
from FedEx Corp.
“The FedEx Global
Education Center at
the University of North
Carolina will epitomize
our belief in innovation,”
said Fred Smith, FedEx
chair, president and chief
executive officer, speaking at the official
dedication in October. “This building will
serve as the nucleus of intellectual and social
activity for faculty, students, alumni and the
community of international scholars from
around the world.”
The Center has quickly become a
hub of international teaching, learning and
outreach.
The Munro-McMillan Gallery Lounge
on the second floor features rotating art
and photography exhibits. The gallery
space is supported by gifts from Donald
Munro ’82 and Peter McMillan ’81, who
were roommates at Carolina. Munro was a
Morehead scholar from Great Britain who
majored in Latin American studies, and
McMillan was a business major from Texas.
Munro serves on UNC’s Advisory Board
for Global Education.
A reception area for International
Student and Scholar Services on the
second floor honors the class of 1938.
Members of the class, who lost friends to
World War II, created an endowment that
supports independent studies abroad for
undergraduates.
The Arthur S. and Martha D. DeBerry
Family Conference Room on the third floor
is supported by a gift from Arthur DeBerry
JD ’57, a member of the Advisory Board for
Global Education.
A fundraising effort is also under way
to name a prominent space in the building
to honor UNC anthropology professor
James Peacock and his wife, Florence, for
their lifelong dedication and service to
international education at Carolina. Professor
Peacock was director of the University
Center for International Studies (now called
the Center for Global Initiatives) and one of
the key champions for creating the Global
Education Center. Led by Marguerite
Hutchins of Chapel Hill and Arthur DeBerry,
the campaign has raised more than $450,000
in gifts and pledges from friends, family and
former students around the world.
The Global Education Center is
already a hot spot for dinners, receptions,
films, lectures, art exhibits, music and
cultural events involving the University
and the wider community. The first major
international event in the building was a
reception and dinner last March honoring
former Brazilian President Fernando
Henrique Cardoso, the Frey Foundation
Distinguished Visiting Professor in the
College of Arts and Sciences.
Last year the African Studies Center
hosted a conference honoring distinguished
colleague Bereket Selassie, with a keynote
address by Gloria Steinem.
The Global Education Center hosted
an African music concert by Mamadou
Diabate, and performances by Cambodian
dancers, musicians and singers, and a Japanese
drumming group. Public school students
flocked to the Center for a program with
African and Caribbean drummers and
educators. A public lecture on global poverty
packed the Mandela auditorium in January.
The building’s architect and designer,
Andrea Leers of Leers Weinzapfel Associates,
said she designed the Center to bring
people together: “It’s a meeting place,
common grounds. That was the idea, that
there were crossroads, places to gather, for
communication and exchange.” •
— To learn more about the FedEx Global
Education Center and international initiatives,
check out the new UNC Global Web site at:
global.unc.edu.
ABOVE: The FedEx Global Education Center is a hub
of international teaching, research and cultural activities.
Carolina First Gl o b a l Ed u c a t i o n
Dan Sears
The most visible evidence on campus of the
University’s commitment to international
learning is the new $39 million FedEx
Global Education Center. You can’t miss
the gleaming four-story structure with its
rooftop garden and street-side patio at the
corner of Pittsboro and McCauley streets.
But what’s going on inside UNC’s portal to
the world tells the real story.
For the first time, the Study Abroad
Office, the Director of International
Programs and Sciences, and seven other
major international and regional programs
in the College are housed together in
modern offices surrounding a three-story
atrium. These include: the Curriculum for
International and Area Studies, the African
Studies Center, Carolina Asia Center,
Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle
East and Muslim Civilizations, the Center
for European Studies, Institute for the
Study of the Americas, and the Center for
Slavic, Eurasia and East European Studies.
Other programs inside include: the Office
of International Affairs, Development for
Global Education, the Center for Global
Initiatives, and International Student and
Scholar Services.
The building provides classrooms,
offices, exhibit space and the 256-seat
Nelson Mandela Auditorium. The fourth
floor will house an institute to support
collaborative international research for UNC
faculty and visiting scholars.
B y D e e R e i d
Building
20 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Nancy Allbritton’s research crosses many
boundaries, incorporating chemistry, physics,
biology, engineering and medicine. Her new
space in Max C. Chapman Jr. Hall has room
to house them all.
Allbritton, the Paul Debreczeny
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, was
wooed from the University of California,
Irvine, in 2007 to Carolina on the strengths
of a new laboratory in Chapman, as well as
UNC’s reputation for outstanding chemistry
and cancer research.
“I would not have come without that
space,” said Allbritton. “To get such a large
space is very difficult, if not impossible, at
most universities. It will really benefit the
lab to have everyone in one place. We have
people working in multiple disciplines, and
we want them to be talking to each other.”
At UNC, Allbritton will focus on
developing new technologies for biological
and medical problems. One project involves
inventing new chemical tests and instruments
for diagnosing chronic myelogenous leukemia
(CML). Some CML patients have a genetic
mutation that affects how they respond to
the drug Gleevec, the best available treatment.
Allbritton’s research will allow doctors to
precisely tailor the amount of drug to the
individual needs of people with CML.
Carolina First
Science
B y B e c k y O s k i n
New facilities
help faculty
and students
break new
ground
TOP TO BOTTOM: Caudill Labs provides
much-needed space for chemistry •
In Chapman Hall, students watch UNC
marine scientists teaching under water
from the Florida Keys • Chapman Hall
is attracting science stars to Carolina
• Chapman’s lecture halls are optimal
teaching and learning facilities.
Dan Sears Lars Sahl
Lars Sahl
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Dean Holden Thorp (left)
with Lowry Caudill, who led science complex fundraising
efforts • (From left), Chancellor James Moeser,
Max Chapman Jr., UNC Trustee Nelson Schwab and Senior
Associate Dean for Sciences Bruce Carney • Nancy
Allbritton enjoys new space in Chapman Hall • Caudill
Labs is the last building to be constructed on Polk Place
Carolina First
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 21
While Allbritton’s laboratory
was completed in February, many
College faculty had already moved
into Caudill and Chapman Halls,
the first two buildings completed as
part of the Carolina Physical Science
Complex. Partially funded by $22
million raised through the Carolina
First campaign and $84 million from
a higher education bond referendum
approved by N.C. voters, the $205
million complex is the largest
construction project in the
University’s history. Alumnus
Lowry Caudill ’79, who
made a lead gift, led the
fundraising efforts.
“This has been a labor
of love for me,” said Caudill.
“When I’m talking to
people about this, it is from
the heart. It’s not only to
educate the students — we
also need it for the future of
North Carolina,” he said.
“We have all sorts of
research technologies within
UNC, and to take that and
transfer that into the private
sector, to allow companies
to be created, jobs to be created, for North
Carolina is a wonderful thing,” Caudill said.
The W. Lowry and Susan S. Caudill
Laboratories — the last of two buildings to
open in phase one of the Carolina Physical
Science Complex and the last building ever
to be constructed on Polk Place — was
officially dedicated April 26, 2007. The
complex’s Royce Murray Quadrangle
honors the longtime Carolina chemistry
professor who was Caudill’s mentor. The
brick plaza outside Caudill Labs is named
for William F. Little, former chemistry
department chair and Research Triangle
Park co-founder.
With about 120,000 square feet,
Caudill Laboratories provides substantial
research laboratory and office space for
the nation’s No. 1 program in analytical
chemistry and the top 15 overall depart-ment
of chemistry (according to U.S.
News & World Report) — adding to existing
space in the Kenan Laboratories (1971) and
Morehead Laboratories (1985). The four-story
building houses 52,000 square feet
of chemistry research laboratories, 7,000
square feet of faculty offices and conference
space, and 2,000 square feet of “open”
student space.
A $5 million gift to the College from
alumnus Max Carrol Chapman Jr. ’66,
helped fund the first building, Chapman
Hall, which opened in fall 2006.
The impact was immediate for the
department of marine sciences, which
moved from the basement of Venable Hall
to Chapman while it waits for space in
new buildings which will replace Venable.
New and
senior faculty
are excited
about using a
4,500-square-foot
fluids
laboratory,
including a
120-foot-long
wave tank and a wind tunnel,
which will allow for new
collaborations between the
mathematics and marine
sciences departments.
“We have a renewed
vigor to raise our visibility,”
said department chair Brent
McKee, the Mary and
Watts Hill Jr. Distinguished
Professor. “We’ve had
excellent students despite the
fact they had to deal with
cramped facilities, and I think
[the new space] is really going to
pay off in increased recruitment
of graduate students.”
Chapman features a remote
observing control room for the
SOAR telescope in Chile, 4,600
miles to the south, and a rooftop
observatory deck for astronomy students
and faculty. The glass-walled Constance and
Leonard Goodman Remote Observing
Room in Chapman, located in a zoolike
habitat near the building’s main entrance,
draws passing students who watch
astronomers at work. The Goodman family
is a longtime supporter of physics and
astronomy at Carolina, where Leonard was
a student in the 1940s.
While the telescope was in a testing
phase this fall, astronomy professor Gerald
Cecil and senior Dmitry Rashkeev took
some pioneering pictures of the planet
Mercury from the observing room.
The images could be some of the best
ever taken of Mercury’s uncharted half,
normally hidden by the sun’s glare.
S c i e n c e CO m p l e x
cont inued
Steve Exum
Dan Sears
22 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First S c i e n c e CO m p l e x
As head of Avery County Bank, Martha
Guy led the family-owned institution to
the top of its class. Founded by her father
in 1913, the bank was named first among
community banks by American Banker in
1998 and had $72 million in assets and
$54 million in deposits in 2003, according to
the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
But Guy never set out to become
a banking legend. She was drawn to
chemistry and spent her undergraduate
years at Carolina roaming Venable Hall.
After graduating in 1942, Guy returned the
following year to pursue a master’s degree
in chemistry, but war intervened.
Guy’s father, Edwin, asked her to return
to her hometown of Newland and lead the
bank while her brother Robert served in
World War II. Broken-hearted, Guy went
home. But the people she met during her
early years as a banker convinced her to
stay. “They were all so nice,” she said.
During the next 60 years, Avery County
Bank became a national leader through its
focus on community banking and supporting
local businesses like Christmas tree farms.
Despite many offers, Guy resisted selling
the bank until 2003, when she was 81.
The sale to First Citizens Bank finally
allowed Guy to focus on her first love
— Carolina’s chemistry labs.
Her gift of a charitable remainder trust
funded the first floor of the Caudill Building
in the Carolina Physical Science Complex,
which houses the Martha Guy Laboratories.
“For years I’ve wanted to give back,”
Guy said.
Guy has since returned to Carolina to
meet the faculty and students who will be
housed in the new science buildings.
“I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the
professors. I still love chemistry, even
though I don’t remember any of it,” said
Guy, laughing. •
A love for
Carolina
Chemistry
B y B e c k y O s k i n
Several floors above
the observing room is the
new rooftop observatory.
Because students
taking Astronomy 101
previously had to work in
shifts on four telescopes
on the observing deck at
Morehead Planetarium,
some had to make their
observations in poor light
conditions. The larger
setup in Chapman has
more room for students
and faculty, said Bruce
Carney, senior associate
dean for sciences.
“The new observing deck at
Chapman enables the telescope-based
labs to be taught all at once, and at a time
when the sky is dark, unlike the previous
sequential sessions at Morehead where one
group often had to try to work in twilight,”
said Carney, who is also the Samuel Baron
Distinguished Professor of Astronomy.
Also in Chapman, two high-tech
lecture halls named for Vicki ’92 and
David Craver ’92 and Stephen M.
Cumbie ’70 ’73 MBA, who supported the
science complex, provide optimal learning
— and teaching — facilities.
In old labs in Phillips Hall, the
Institute for Advanced Materials,
Nanoscience and Technology had to deal
with vibrations from cars and trucks in an
adjacent parking lot, power lines and the
building’s window air conditioner. Since
the move to Chapman, Rich Superfine,
Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor in
physics and astronomy, discovered that
the data from a microscope he uses to
examine single molecules of DNA in
studies of blood clotting is “considerably
quieter.”
“The better measurements I think
will allow us to better determine the
forces involved when cells divide and
help us understand the process of clotting
better,” he said.
• Computer
Science
expands
In its nearly 45-year
history, the department
of computer science has
outgrown eight buildings.
In late 2008, it will
expand into its ninth
location — Frederick
P. Brooks Jr. Hall, now
under construction
adjacent to Sitterson Hall,
the department’s current
home. Brooks is the first
facility to be built in
phase two of the science
complex building effort. Former students
made a gift to name the building after the
department’s founder and 20-year chair.
Fred Brooks came to Carolina in 1964
after a nine-year career at IBM, where he
made landmark contributions to computer
architecture, operating systems and software
engineering — contributions that have
stood the test of time and shaped the way
people think about computing.
He coined the term “computer
architecture” and was project manager for
the development of the IBM’s System/360
family of computers and operating
system/360 software.
The building adds 32,000 square feet to
Sitterson’s 70,000 square feet, and includes
several classrooms, with one 21-seat room
designed for First Year Seminars, a graphics
lab for the nation’s top university in this
specialty, and an entire floor dedicated to the
study of computer security.
• What’s next
Venable Hall, home to the chemistry
department since 1925, was demolished
in late 2007 and early 2008 and two new
buildings are under construction in its
place. New Venable and a building yet to
be named will house the chemistry library,
classrooms, lecture halls, conference rooms
and the marine sciences department. •
ABOVE: The $205 million
science complex is the
largest construction project
in the University’s history
Steve Exum
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 23
Carolina’s Women’s Leadership Council
co-chair Mary Anne Dickson, a 1963
political science graduate, has helped to
motivate thousands of women to support
Carolina First.
The Council’s impact on the campaign,
and Dickson’s own leadership and generosity,
will make a difference for the College and
the University for many years to come,
especially for students interested in learning
firsthand about the world.
The Women’s Leadership Council is
a campuswide initiative whose mission is
to create a network of women committed
to supporting the University. Dickson co-chairs
the council with Barbara Hyde ’83
and Julia Sprunt Grumbles ’75.
“We believe in the University, and we
believe in what we’re doing,” Dickson said.
“Women are using their voices and time
and talent, as well as their resources. We
went from an attendance of 30 the first year
to 150 last year at our annual meeting.” At
the same time, the council held outreach
events that drew Carolina alumnae from
around the country.
“This thing has just sort of snowballed,
but we really had to roll up our sleeves to
make it happen,” Dickson added. “After
three years, it really took on a
life of its own. We have had well
over 18,000 women who made
first-time gifts.”
Dickson is also a member
of the Carolina First steering
committee and has chaired
the Board of Visitors. She and
her sister, Neal Johnson ’76,
endowed the Charles Garland
Johnson Sr. Scholars Fund in
International Studies, enabling
students from North Carolina to
study abroad. The fund, named
in honor of their father, provided
scholarships for 15 students
during 2007-2008 alone.
“Honoring our father in this way was
a natural fit,” Dickson said. “Our parents
enjoyed traveling, we both enjoy traveling,
and one of the chancellor’s goals is for every
student, whether he or she can afford it, to
have the opportunity to study and travel
abroad.”
Raymond B. Farrow III, executive
director of the Frank Hawkins Kenan
Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC,
recalls how Dickson helped him raise funds
for study abroad programs and scholarships
when he served as director of development
for international studies in the College from
1998 to 2004.
At the time, international studies
lacked a well-defined constituency since
the major had only recently become
popular among undergraduates.
But Farrow didn’t have to recite
his well-practiced entreaties about
why Carolina had to become more
international. “From the moment we
began talking,” he recalled, “Mary Anne
‘got it.’” Then she said, “Let’s figure out
how to raise some money.”
Dickson began discussing how
she and her sister wanted to establish an
endowment. In addition to her own gift,
Dickson discussed a number of other donor
prospects. Almost all ended up providing
significant support to international studies
by the end of the campaign.
“Mary Anne was, for me, a prime
mover,” said Farrow. “Her gift and visible
support for international studies led to
many others. The trajectory of Carolina
will be forever altered because of the work
she has done.”
After graduating from Carolina,
Dickson moved to Rocky Mount, N.C.,
where she served as the assistant to the
chairman and chief executive officer of
Hardee’s Food Systems. She also holds a
degree in business administration from
North Carolina Wesleyan.
Dickson has received two of UNC’s
highest honors. In 2003, she was given the
William Richardson Davie Award from
the Board of Trustees. In 2006, she was
awarded a Distinguished Service Medal
from the General Alumni Association. Both
of her children, Chase ’89 AB ’95 MPH
and Chris ’92, are Carolina graduates and
actively involved with the University.
Dickson said it’s “really thrilling” to
support Carolina and to motivate other
donors to do the same.
“I feel so rewarded because of the
incredibly wonderful women I’ve met,” she
said. “It has just been very gratifying.” •
ABOVE: Mary Anne Dickson
Carolina First W o m e n ’ s L e a d e r s h i p
Steve Exum
{ } “We believe in the University,
and we believe in what
we’re doing. Women are using
their voices and time and talent,
as well as their resources.
We went from an attendance of
30 the first year to 150 last year
at our annual meeting.”
— Mary Anne Dickson
Mary Anne Dickson ’63 has motivated thousands
to support Carolina First
A Champion for Carolina B y P a m e l a B a b c o c k
Debate
New professor makes that a rhetorical question
ANYONE?
Carolina First
24 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Making a Difference
in Carolina First
• Michael Piller Distinguished
Visiting Professorship
The legacy of Michael Piller ’70
continues through the writing for the
screen and stage program. Piller, best
known for creating stories for “Star Trek,”
died in 2005. This endowment will bring
stage and screen writers, directors and
producers to teach at UNC.
• Kenneth W. Lowe Fund
Ken Lowe ’72, who founded Home
and Garden Television and serves as
president and CEO of the E.W. Scripps
Co., gave $300,000 to establish the fund
to support and retain communication
studies faculty.
• Woody Durham Distinguished
Professorship
More than 120 friends and admirers
of the “Voice of the Tar Heels” have
contributed $666,000 to establish
this distinguished professorship in
communication studies.
P r o g r a m S u p p o r t
Jeffrey Alan Allred has three degrees from
UNC and a million dollars worth of faith in
the power of debate.
Appropriately putting his money
where his mouth is, he established the Jeff
and Jennifer Allred Initiative for Critical
Thinking and Communication Studies,
which brought rhetoric scholar Christian O.
Lundberg to UNC. Lundberg’s appointment
as assistant professor in the department of
communication studies was based on his
natural abilities as an experienced teacher and
coach of debating’s finest skills. The fund also
honors Allred’s friend, mentor and former
debate team member Joseph P. McGuire ’72.
Allred (’76 AB political science ’80
MBA/JD) came to Carolina due largely to
the national stature of its debate program.
He was involved in the debate program
throughout his undergraduate years and
was a member of UNC’s freshman national
championship debate team. “My experiences
on UNC’s intercollegiate debate team served
as the foundation for my success,” said Allred,
who is president and CEO of the Griffeon
Group, a business consulting firm in Atlanta.
“The ability to critically think, articulate and
defend a position is essential no matter what
your life’s calling.”
• Another champion
Christian O. Lundberg received his
Ph.D. in 2006 in rhetoric and public culture
from Northwestern University. He has
coached three university teams to national
championships in intercollegiate debates.
“We didn’t believe the hype about
Chapel Hill,” said Lundberg, “until I joined
the faculty and we moved to Hillsborough,
where my wife, Beth, and I are raising our
daughter, Annabeth. Even the hype doesn’t
do the area justice.”
He explained, “I came to UNC with
a determination to make debate and critical
thinking practices publicly relevant, on
and off campus.” He teaches “Globalization
and Communication,” “Rhetorical Theory”
and “Theories of the Public Sphere,” and
also serves as a resource to faculty on
effective oral communication and critical
thinking skills.
“I created the First Year Seminar
‘Think, Speak, Argue’ as a
vibrant environment for
student-centered learning,”
said Lundberg. Readings
include Plato and Aristotle
as well as educator John
Dewey’s How We Think.
Students develop thinking
and communication skills
by writing persuasive
speeches, role-playing
congressional investigative
committees and
brainstorming public
policy issues.
“The rationale for
the course emulated Jeff Allred’s vision
that a university is most successful when it
not only teaches people competencies in
specific academic areas, but when it also
helps students use those competencies to
positively impact society,” Lundberg said.
• Think your favorite color is blue?
Across the University, students think,
speak and argue about the seminar.
Ting Xu Tan, a biology major, credits
Lundberg with “battering down my fears
of public speaking.”
Julianne Goodpaster, a business major,
said, “Think your favorite color is blue? He
will convince you it’s green. I’m humbled
to have studied under such a remarkable
talent and offer my condolences to anyone
who attempts to debate him.”
Fellow business major David
Blumberg noted, “Debate defines Carolina
as much as any other focus at UNC
— except for Tar Heel basketball. He instills
us with an internal drive for knowledge
that will extend far beyond our years at
school.” •
B y J B S h e l t o n
Top: Christian
Lundberg is
passionate about
debate. Middle: Woody Durham. Bottom: Michael Piller, who created
stories for ‘Star Trek,’ proudly wore his Carolina cap on the set.
Isaac Sandlin
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 25
Making a Mark in Carolina First
• Blanche Britt Armfield Fund
The late poet Blanche Britt Armfield
(MA English ’28) endowed the fund,
enhanced with a gift from her estate, to
champion the cause of poetry at UNC.
• Doris Betts Distinguished
Professorship of Creative Writing
A $1 million endowment was funded
with a gift of $334,000 from Ben Jones ’50
and $332,000 from more than 60 donors.
The gifts were matched with $334,000
from the state Distinguished Professors
Endowment Trust Fund.
• Suzanne Bolch Literary Award
The award sponsors a Carolina
undergraduate’s summer travel-writing
project. Named for Suzanne Bolch ’88, the
award honors the role played by the creative
writing program in her filmmaking career.
• Froelich Family Fund
Henry ’81 and his wife, Molly Dewar
Froelich ’83, memorialized Mazie, his
mother, through a $100,000 expendable
fund. The gift bolsters the salaries of
successful writers who are lecturers in the
program.
• Walker Percy Fund
The Frank Borden Hanes Charitable
Lead Trust honors the distinguished Southern
novelist and 1937 UNC alumnus with an
endowment that supports lecturers.
• Robert Ruark Award
In remembrance of the N.C. novelist,
the award celebrates student nonfiction
writing. Support comes from the Robert
Ruark Society, a charitable remainder trust
created by James T. Cheatham III (’57 ’61 JD).
• Children’s and Young Adult
Literature Award Fund
The late Bill Hooks (’47 MA ’50)
created the fund to support awards for
students who write books for children and
young adults, and to fund travel for students
to attend a children’s writing conference.
Carolina First P r o g r a m S u p p o r t
Thomas Wolfe ’20, UNC’s most celebrated
author, is best known for his novels of
personal exploration, Look Homeward, Angel
and You Can’t Go Home Again. His legacy
thrives through the words and works of
talented new writers and devoted alumni
of the creative writing program in UNC’s
department of English and comparative
literature.
In 2001, Frank Borden Hanes Sr. ’42
of Winston-Salem, N.C., an accomplished
journalist, poet and novelist, contributed
$2 million to establish the Thomas Wolfe
Scholarship.
The scholarship offers full, four-year
financial support for up to two incoming
students per year, selected for exceptionally
focused literary ability and promise. Since
fall 2002, the scholarship’s board of advisers
has named seven Wolfe Scholars.
“Our program had a high profile
thanks to the talented writers and teachers
who have come through here, but when
Mr. Hanes gave us the scholarship he
put a huge gold star on creative writing,”
said program director Bland Simpson, a
Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished
Professor. “There really aren’t any other
programs quite like this. It certainly elevated
our national profile and stature.”
• Thomas Wolfe Scholars
The Thomas Wolfe Scholars minor in
creative writing and are instilled with Wolfe’s
spirit, honing their talents in
the place fondly called the
“Southern Part of Heaven.”
Andrew Chan, an
’08 English and
comparative
literature major from
Charlotte, N.C., is
the third recipient of
a Wolfe Scholarship.
“The
scholarship has had
a major impact on
my life,” said Chan,
who has applied to cinema studies graduate
programs and hopes to become a film critic.
“For the first time, I felt affirmed in
my desire to make writing a priority in
my life. Throughout my four years, I have
felt supported by the faculty and my peers,”
Chan added. “I am so grateful for this
scholarship, which has made my growth
and commitment as a writer possible.”
In addition to Chan, the scholars are
Caitlin Doyle ’06 of East Hampton, N.Y.;
Hannah Poston ’07 of Newtown, Pa.;
Kendra Fish ’09 of Castle Rock, Colo.;
Nathaniel Lumpkin ’10 of Raleigh, N.C.;
Maria Devlin ’11 of Bronxville, N.Y.; and
Denise Rickman ’11 of Apex, N.C.
• Unwavering support and faith
“The unwavering support we receive
from the friends of the University is a
marvel,” Simpson said. “Their generosity
makes possible the depth of our curricular
and extracurricular activities.”
In 2007-08, nearly 700 Carolina
undergraduates will choose from the
creative writing program’s 40-plus courses
of prose and poetry. Simpson, who began
teaching at UNC in 1982, said, “The
program has always been good, but it
has become stronger and more vibrant
because of the succession of gifts we have
received.” •
Above: Thomas Wolfe Scholars Kendra Fish ’09,
Andrew Chan ’08 and Caitlin Doyle ’06 with poet
Fred Chappell, wearing the Thomas Wolfe Medal.
Right: Bland Simpson.
TheWRITE choice B y J B S h e l t o n
Honoring the legacy of Thomas Wolfe, other writers
26 • Spring 2008 • Carolina Arts & Sciences
Carolina First
Two business leaders and Carolina alumni
agree on at least one thing — that the study
and practice of ethics is crucial for better
business and a better world. That’s why Gary
W. Parr ’79 and John Allison IV ’71 have
directed substantial gifts to the department
of philosophy that have had a significant
impact on classroom teaching, research and
outreach involving ethics.
When Parr pursued his business major
at UNC, ethics courses were not offered as
part of the undergraduate business program.
“Teaching ethics as a part of business
seemed to me to be fundamental,” said
Parr, deputy chairman of Lazard, a global
financial advisory firm in New York City.
“I’m a big believer that people of all ages
should be taught frameworks for dealing
with [tough] issues.”
In 2004, the Gary W. Parr Family
Foundation established the Parr Center
for Ethics in the department of philosophy
with gifts totaling $2.156 million. The
center is devoted to the study, teaching and
discussion of ethics across the University
and in the community.
“The Parr Center stands as the public
face of the University’s commitment to
ethics. In the process, it works well to
support research and teaching devoted
to ethics, at both the undergraduate and
graduate levels,” said department chair Geoff
Sayre-McCord.
The center complements ethics
courses and projects already offered
at Carolina. “There is now a place for
coordinating efforts and creating synergy,”
he added.
Events at the center have explored
a variety of issues: sports, corporate law,
capital punishment and other topics. Some
offerings reach beyond Carolina, like the
ethics bowl, an undergraduate competition
hosted at UNC in November. The center
also organized workshops on ethics and
disability that included events in Chapel
Hill and England.
In addition to
seminars, work-shops
and lectures,
the Parr Founda-tion
gift supports
research and a
visiting faculty
member each year
who teaches un-dergraduates
and
participates in Parr
Center events.
• Culture based
on values
Allison, who
earned a UNC business degree, is now
chairman and chief executive officer
of BB&T. The corporation’s banking
culture is built around 10 primary values
that are consistent, integrated and put
into practice. The focus on values grows
from the belief that ideas matter and
that an individual’s character is of crucial
significance.
“As a large business, subject to
all types of regulations and constantly
striving to meet the needs of our
customers, BB&T has a significant
interest in exploring and understanding
the moral foundations of a free society
and free markets. Because of its focus
on ethics and rationality, the philosophy
department at UNC is an excellent place
to achieve this end,” said Allison, who has
lectured on leadership and values at the
Parr Center.
The BB&T Charitable Foundation’s
two $1 million gifts, made in 2002 and
2007, have supported research and a
visiting faculty member every year.
These gifts have established what
Sayre-McCord calls “a fund for excel-lence.”
“Thanks to the BB&T gifts,
we’re in a position to support valuable
research, innovative teaching and a more
challenging intellectual environment.
Faculty are able to go to conferences that
we couldn’t have afforded otherwise. We
bring in exciting speakers who are doing
cutting-edge work,” he said. “We���ve been
able to enhance dramatically our research,
the quality of our graduate program and
the excitement in our department.”
BB&T also has helped support
the establishment of a minor in
philosophy, politics and economics, and
a visiting faculty member who teaches
undergraduate courses and does research
with a focus on human nature, Aristotle,
theories of justice and political economy.
“Thanks to the support from the
Parr Family Foundation, from BB&T
and from a number of other generous
donors, UNC’s philosophy department is
thriving,” Sayre-McCord said. •
— The Fiske Guide to Colleges has
repeatedly named philosophy among Carolina’s
strongest undergraduate programs, and The
Philosophical Gourmet Report, a national
survey, ranks philosophy in the top 10 in the
country. Faculty Scholarly Productivity
Index, a private survey based on faculty
publications and citations, said UNC has
the most productive philosophy department
in the nation.
From left: Gary Parr ’79 and John Allison ’71 have directed gifts to
philosophy to enhance teaching, research and outreach involving ethics.
P r o g r a m S u p p o r t
Focus on
Gifts enhance teaching, research and outreach
Ethics B y J e s s C l a r k e
Carolina First P r o g r a m S u p p o r t
Carolina Arts & Sciences • Spring 2008 • 27
The Carolina Center for Jewish Studies
— which has helped spark a groundswell
of interest in Jewish history and culture,
from biblical times to the present, across the
Carolina campus — continues its quest to
put the program on the map nationally and
internationally.
The Jewish studies center was founded
in 2003, and today more than 1,000 students
study Jewish history and culture in the
College. The program continues to receive
substantial gifts to bolster faculty, while a
lecture series and statewide outreach
program attract growing numbers.
“We’ve secured funding for four
new endowed faculty positions in Jewish
studies, and we’re hoping soon to be able
to create a Jewish studies program second
to none in the country,” said director Jonathan
M. Hess, the Moses M. and Hannah L.
Malkin Distinguished Term Professor in
Jewish History and Culture.
• Leading scholar joins the program
In fall 2007, Jonathan Boyarin was
named the Leonard and Tobee Kaplan
Distinguished Professor of Modern
Jewish Thought. Boyarin joined UNC
from the University of Kansas.
“He’s one of the world’s leading
scholars on Jewish culture,” Hess observed.
“I’m encouraged to come to a place
where the development of Jewish studies
was already well in progress,” Boyarin said.
“That means developing discourse and
competence in various areas of Jewish
culture, history, politics and tradition —
all of which help show the way that the
study of Jewishness is a vital connecting
thread through the humanities, arts and
social sciences.”
This spring, Boyarin is teaching
“Hasidism and Modern Orthodoxy” and
“Secularism and Political Theology.”
Boyarin’s hire was made possible by a
$1 million gift in 2006 from Greensboro
resident Leonard Kaplan, a 1949 Carolina
alumnus, and his wife, Tobee. Additional
funding from the N.C. Distinguished
Professors Endowment Trust brought the
Kaplan endowment to $1,334,000.
• Pivotal gift to attract ‘rising star’
The center recognizes it’s also critical
to attract new faculty who can build their
careers at UNC.
In September 2007, the center received
a $1 million gift to hire a young scholar
in modern Hebrew literature and Israeli
culture. The center is applying for a state
matching grant of $500,000 to bring the
endowment to $1.5 million. The center is
currently recruiting for the Levine-Sklut
Fellow in Jewish Studies, and hopes to have
someone on board in fall 2008.
“Modern Hebrew is a linchpin of any
Jewish studies program,” Hess said. “This
position will enable us to bring in someone
who will teach courses that our students
could have only dreamed of in the past.”
The gift came from two generations
of a Charlotte, N.C., family and their family
foundations: Lori and Eric Sklut, and Lori’s
parents, Leon and Sandra Levine. Eric Sklut
is a 1980 Carolina alumnus and member
of the center’s advisory board.
Eli N. Evans ’58, chair of the Jewish
studies advisory board said, “The credibility
conferred by this gift will surely inspire
others to join the mission of making a
first-rate Jewish studies program available
to every student at the University and
every community across the state.”
• Rich history, promising future
Jewish studies classes were first taught
at Carolina in the 1940s. Today, the
program draws on the expertise of faculty
from American studies, religious studies,
history, English, Germanic languages and
literature, Slavic languages and literatures,
and Asian studies.
It offers about 30 courses and also
undergraduate minors in Jewish studies and
modern Hebrew. During Carolina First,
three other distinguished professorships
were created:
• The late Moses Malkin and his
wife, Hannah, 1941 UNC graduates from
Sun City, Fla., established the distinguished
professorship awarded to Hess.
• The JMA and Sonja van der Horst
Distinguished Professorship in Jewish Studies
was established by the family of Johannes
“Hans” and his wife, Holocaust survivor
Sonja. Two of the children, Charles van der
Horst, a professor of medicine at UNC,
and Jacqueline van der Horst Sergent ’82
MPH, have UNC connections.
• The Sara and E.J. Evans Distinguished
Professorship was funded by the Arie and
Ida Crown Memorial of Chicago. •
ABOVE: Jonathan Boyarin, the new Kaplan
Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish Thought.
RIGHT: Lori and Eric Sklut and Lori’s parents,
Leon and Sandra Levine, gave a $1 million gift to
hire a ‘rising star’ in Jewish studies.
B y P a m e l a B a b c o c k
for Jewish Studies
Key gifts bolster faculty, programs
Momentum
Gifts increase professorships, in